Every journey commences with a destination in mind. So it has been for ages. Any task, however brief, requires an objective like the experiments in the science laboratory. Whether rock climbing or sailing the ocean, a target serves the purpose and provides something to look forward to. Just imagine the shooters and archers at the Olympics with no mark to aim!
Essential goal setting for professional and personal goals
Like a map or ladder, goals motivate and show the way through the jungle, shopping trips, or the software universe. Research confirms the need for a plan that we hold so necessary to any enterprise. Perhaps the business and sales world requires more elaborate goal setting in terms of targets, but goals generally apply anywhere. “A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance” by Locke and Latham in 1990 emphasizes goal setting for better performance. Further, they stress the five factors of Clarity, Challenge, Commitment, Feedback, and Task Complexity on the way to achieving success
Vision and Mission
Individuals and institutions are similar. Conventionally, Vision refers to long-term goals like setting up a factory that may take a decade. Mission refers to the short-term goals like earning money needed over five years. A properly planned Mission and vision combination should set the individual, professional, or family group scaling great heights.
The need to write down the plan
Though writing seems to have almost vanished now, it seems evident that such serious plans of action that commenced with contemplation should be put down in words. Write it in a diary or type it all out in pretty formats in private space on the computer with illustrations and quotations. Keep a copy safe in the cloud or Google Drive, according to convenience. Refer to it now and then whenever the need arises to refresh the memory and make further notes or changes.
Consider the widespread use of recorded goals in educational intuitions and workplaces across the globe. Further, psychology and psychiatry use them in with patients.
Personal goals
It may be a desire to lose weight or find a new partner. Are you pursuing a new and exciting hobby like aquarium fish keeping or reviving a dormant sex life? Personal goals, too, need planning and preferably written ones or at least recorded in some form of media. Joining a program, reading a book, buying a gift, attending a webinar, and the budgets needed could be planned actions to achieve the personal goal.
- Improving public speaking skills
- Playing a musical instrument
- Researching a topic
- Fitness goals
- Financial goals
Do plans and goals always succeed?
Certainly not! When predators hunt prey in the forest, they fail most of the time. The problem is how to judge success and failure. What is the yardstick? Shall we say that a percentage of success has been achieved and 75% should be good enough?
Some barriers to success
If the plan has not been so successful, it makes sense to examine why. Was it a health problem that stood in the way? If transport problems occurred with no services available in remote areas, are you to blame? Similarly, acts of God could mess up many plans. Negative social attitudes and stigma could create problems concerning certain activities.
Promote peaceful sleep with a rigorous plan of action
We seem to be equating good goal setting with success, and that is quite true. Lucky are those successful careers and personal lives that have conquered all the obstacles and reached the top. They are confident and possess commitment and drive. Having received the blessings of society, they wish to repay the elders and the leaders. Make a mark on the social fabric to be remembered by posterity.
Awards and recognitions are indicators of success at whatever level, like in school innocence or glittering professional worlds. Completing mega projects or improving educational and technical skills would have the documents to prove it.
Excellence is the hallmark that brings success, and that is achieved only with careful planning and goal setting down to the minor details. Like an annual plan of study has monthly and even weekly segments, the end will witness the cumulative assessment of targets fulfilled. You need to achieve specific standards in the chosen field, engineering or networking, art or photography.
Along with earning to make a living in a routine job, some higher power guides human destiny. Shall we call it spirituality? It would help if you communed with that universal spirit that abides in all things. Find a way and realize your dreams.
The changing circumstances of 21st-century life
Professionally speaking and in education too, the technological software infrastructure has now become predominant. Media jobs or accountants, teachers and writers, graphic designers, and personal assistants often work entirely online. And may reside in a far, far away country. Can you imagine working with somebody you have never met or seen? A virtual lifestyle sums up the state of our present-day existence. Real worlds sometimes appear virtual too.
How to improve your life and career
Jobs that carry responsibility and pay well are what everybody wants. Aiming for promotions that may require further training or academic degrees are ways to get serious about life. Changing jobs and careers can be stressful but may lead to better lifestyles after the transition period.
The ability and the courage to take risks are fundamental to existence. Each day we are exposed to some dangers like in traffic. It would be best if you often sacrificed something in the hopes of a better future life. That is what migrants are doing all the time. But it is a rough transition with many barriers along the way.
Draw the success line!
Avoid excessive risks that the gamblers might take at the card table. Changing careers or migrating carries risks, just like trading shares online. Why not settle for the safe and steady path that does not include a sensational lifestyle but assures of the basic needs of life? Billions seem to be content with the average lifestyle.
Start with the SMART approach and brainstorm. Goals need to be specific and measurable, attainable and relevant, time-based too. Write them down. Be positive and precise. Cover the basics of life like career and financial matters, education and family too. Need to plan to improve yourself and the family, society, and the world.