The Most Important Step in Goal Setting
“I want to make an extra $25,000 this year”
How many times have you told yourself this? Did it ever come true?
It is easy to create a goal but I know you will agree when I say that achieving it is a different story.
Have you noticed why most of our new year’s resolutions fall in our minds but rarely in our hands? Because some of it did not really have its WHY. Before working yourself hard for a goal you must first need to discover its WHY.
Here are three reasons why the most important step in goal setting is its WHY.
Your Goal Must Be Rooted To Something Bigger.
Let’s take for example the $25,000. $20,000 for your children’s tuition fee and the remaining $5,000 for family vacations.
Believe it or not this WHY will drive you forward.
When life gets tough and circumstances get hard why will propel you. Not the mere want to achieve it but the deeper sense of your goal. It must be rooted to something. Rooted to a deeper desire that enables you to wake up every morning and be one step closer to your goal.
Don’t let your feelings fade and hinder its completion.
You must know what’s holding you to your goal. Set a benchmark. In this case the tuition fee and family vacation. Whatever it is you need to have a strong reason behind it. For what’s behind will push you further.
Your Goal Will Require Hard Work.
Before achieving your goal you will be required to go through all these process of hard work and harder work.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of fighting your wants and your desires to achieve something. Especially when you don’t even know why you want to achieve them in the first place. Working hard is a commendable trait but you need to keep in mind your WHY.
But because of the tuition fee and family vacations it is now easier to work hard for you know the root cause of WHY you want it.
The next challenge now is the amount of work and effort why investing on your goal. In every moment that you’re not working towards that goal you know that you’re not going to achieve your WHY.
You see why we have to understand the stories we tell ourselves and the lies we tell ourselves
Your Goal Needs To Be Understood.
What if magically your children got scholarship?
What will you need those extra money for? The WHY of your goal starts to disappear. But let’s face it what’s wrong with having more money, right?
So you still worked hard. Now you’re just working without a clear WHY in mind. You worked so hard and after six months you grew sales, increased assets but at the end of the day all you got is a “Yeah Bob, not this year maybe next year”. Imagine missing family dinners and school events for nothing.
Is the opportunity cost in going after that money worth it? The overtime, sacrifices, or dealing with a boss you hate. Therefore it is crucial to understand your goal and see why we have to understand the stories we tell ourselves.
For we may be reaching for a goal that we do not understand what’s for, in the first place. And the downside of it is may cost more than its worth.
The sky’s the limit for our goals but it would not last without having something that’s rooted in it. Our why are embedded in our hearts and souls which signifies what we truly long for. Taking the most important step will help you achieve your goal. The next time you set your goal remember to know its root, acknowledge that it needs hard work, and completely understand it.