What Are Your Goals?

Selecting your specific goals

“Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning

if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.”

—Aristotle

What Is A Goal?

    A Goal is a well-defined target, an end point that focuses energy and effort from the past and present, to take you into the future. A Goal may be exceedingly practical when focused on a revenue-producing career, or it may be a laudable dream when an amateur author aims to write a bestselling book.

    A carefully chosen Goal draws from the past when you evaluate the power of your values and create your Values Statement. It includes the present when you consider the many aspects of your mission and develop your Mission Statement. A Goal also incorporates your vision of your future; that is, your choices of the things you would like to have, to do, and to be in the near or distant future.Includedin a well-crafted Goal are key components from your SCOT analysis. The major factors involved in the dynamics of generating a rational Goal, with a high degree of successful implementation, is represented by the Goals graphic.

Identifying Goals

    While Goal-setting is related to all the factors mentioned above, the visioning process which you have done, is the most important prelude to identifying Goals. Unlike visioning, which is divergent, Goal-setting is convergent; that is, a process of selecting and prioritizing.

     There are many sources of efforts, emotions, and energy that must be tapped in defining a Goal and considerably more of each in implementing it. A properly chosen and executed Goal will not only focus all this energy, but will also magnify and maximize the energy that emerges from this successful strategic plan and its execution. This process is synergistic: the results exceed the sum of the input, in which 2 plus 2 is greater than 4.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

     The selection of a potential Goal usually starts in the body of the Vision Statement, in which the wishes and  wants for the future are defined. A review of your personal Vision Statement will provide this initial step.

     At this point it might be wise to take a step back and look at the work of the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, who in 1954 published The Hierarchy of Needs.  Maslow’s basic premise is that a person’s motivation and resultant behavior are determined by one's needs. He departed from others in his field who held that people are controlled by mechanical forces (stimuli and reinforcement of behaviors) or by unconscious instinctual forces favored by the various schools of psychoanalysis. 

     Maslow felt most people first meet the needs of the lowest level, that is physiological or body needs (such as needs for oxygen, water, food, and maintenance of body), lest they die. One can live without air for only minutes, without water for only a few days, and without food for up to forty days. A person can die from hypothermia in as little as ten minutes.

      The second level, which addresses safety and security needs, focuses on the efforts to secure and  maintain a stable environment with adequate shelter. It also includes planning for meeting the ongoing needs for level one and two. These first two levels are especially important for children to feel secure. However, adults’ behaviors and motivations are rapidly modified to address these basic needs during times of war, riots, environmental disasters, and famine.

      Level three, labeled social or affiliation needs, deals with a person’s relationships with others, including family and friends as well as the larger outside world. There are three types of love as defined by the ancient Greeks: agape (divine love), eros (physical love), and phileo (friendship). In its broadest sense, efforts expended at this level are to meet the need to have a sense of belonging.

    The fourth level, esteem or recognition needs, addresses a person’s sense of self-respect, as well as respect from others in his world, so he can feel satisfied with his life performance.

    The apex of Maslow’s pyramid is self-actualization, wherein a person may reach beyond his personal life and respond to a “calling.” Since this level is the least tangible or definable of the five levels of the hierarchy, it includes aspects of a mystical life. The calling may lure a person into a quest in the world of art, music, writing, or spirituality. While most people who reach this level have expended the efforts or enjoyed the luxury of having the four “lower” levels met, there are many striking exceptions, especially in the world of religion. 

   The Christian mystics of the first millennium, Hindu holy men, and Buddhist monks have transcended the concerns of the first three levels to focus their entire lives on the top two.

S.M.A.R.T.

    In the practical search for goals, the acronym SMART stands for selecting a goal that is:

S = Specific (Is it specific and definable?)

M  = Measurable (Can it be measured?)

A  = Achievable (Can it be done?)

R  = Realistic (Do you have the resources?)

T  = Timely (Can it be done in time?)

     In the creation and prioritization of a goal, one would be wise to ask if the goal is “smart.”

On “Toxic” Forces and People

    The history of mankind has been replete with despots, tyrants, and dictators. All of us find toxic or destructive people in our lives, some of whom may have power over us. It is also true that each of us has, within ourselves, some toxic aspects.

    Some of these toxic behaviors come in the form of bad habits such as whining, procrastinating, defeatism, or being envious. Others are considerably more destructive, such as addiction, dishonesty, physical or psychological abuse, or thievery. Create your own list, and then decide what personality traits or behaviors are toxic, either in others or within you, that you can reduce, eliminate, or even accept.

     Only you can decide what you will tolerate.

The Role of Time

    The last factor, time, is often the major factor in the wise creation and selection of Goals. Decide when a Goal should be started and completed. There are short-term Goals that need to be addressed as soon as possible; you may need to respond to an immediate crisis or an opportunity. Next, there are the mid-term Goals that may have to be started within a year or as late as five years.

     Then there are longer-term Goals that may be started within ten years or longer. The time in which any specific Goal should be completed is a function of the complexity and nature of the Goal. Some Goals must be completed within an ordered sequence, and others may never be finished, even in a lifetime. As to lifetime Goals, consider: What do you want to do before you die?

Goal Planning

    On a plain sheets of paper you can enter the following titles and then set about to enter the Goals and prioritize them:

                    Goals: Ultra-Short-Term Goals

                    Goals: Short-Term (this year)

                    Goals: Mid-Term (up to 5 years)

                    Goals: Long-Term (up to 10 years)

                    Goals: Before You Die.

    Start by reviewing your Vision Statement and the “Have, Do and Be” worksheets. Select and define potential Goals by merging “wants” from these sources into definable Goals. Next, evaluate these Goals in light of the major factors indicated in the graphic above. Ask the “SMART” questions that address the specificity, measurability, achievability, resource availability, and timeliness. Also revisit your Values Statement to ensure that a potential Goal is in concert with your values.

Author’s Suggestions

     Selecting and prioritizing a limited number of specific and defined Goals is as important as it is demanding. These selections must match your available time and resources (which may change in the future).

“You must have long-term goals to keep from being

frustrated by the short-term failures.”

—Charles C. Noble

“You need to overcome the tug of people against

you as you reach for high goals.”

—General George S. Patton

“Our plans miscarry because they have no goal.

When a man does not know what harbor he is

making for, no wind is the right wind.”

—Seneca

©2005 American Author, a division of Cevado Technologies. All rights reserved.