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“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” Benjamin Franklin
Success, as defined by Merriam-Webster is “Degree or measure of succeeding (to attain a desired object or end)”. The most important words in that definition are “desired outcome”. If you ask several people what the definition of success is… you will get several definitions. Success is what WE define it to be. Sure, you can look all over social media and see people who are “successful”. They may have many of the things and/or the status that we desire as well, but you will also note that others have these incredible “successes” that we are not drawn too whatsoever. Success is personal. In order to align ourselves with “success”, we need to get clear on what would make us feel successful because at the end of the day its different for everyone. It is what drives us, what fuels us, what excites us that will make us feel successful. Small scale success are always the training ground for bigger success in personal development and career!
I like to use the S.M.A.R.T goal acronym as a guide. S pecific M easurable A ttainable R ealistic T imely Specific – Be specific with your goals and how you are going to achieve them. For instance, I knew I wanted to change my body composition but it wasn’t good enough to just tell myself that I wanted to lose weight and work out more. I had to be specific on my target and say “I want to gain strength and change the look of my arms to be more toned”. That was more easily digestible by my subconscious and I could get my head and motivation around getting a plan of attack on that. By doing that, of course I would by proxy be losing weight and of course working out more but it was much more motivating to focus on my arms and watch the changes happen. Measurable – Institute target dates or other measurables and metrics to keep yourself accountable and on task to meet the said goal. A personal experience with this for me is I decided a few months back that I will finally tackle a goal I’ve had my entire adult life and that was to runk in a 5k race. (I know that is small potatoes for many of you!!!)…but that was a real desire and goal for me….a big success bucket list type of item for me. So a few months back I targeted a race I thought would work from a scheduling perspective and I just signed myself up and I hadn’t even run one bit up to the moment I signed up! I set a specific goal and a specific time and I began the process of setting a running schedule in motion to build up to the 3.1 miles that I would need to be able to “run” in order to finish the race and feel SUCCESSFUL! Attainable – The goal has to seem realistic to you or you will lose interest shortly after setting it. Strive to identify goals that, with a little stretching for you, and being out of your comfort zone a little, you could actually make come true! You will begin to develop the attitudes and intellectual capacity to reach them. You may want to change something about yourself that you know will not happen overnight but if you set definitive goals and projects for yourself your success rate will be much much higher. If you feel like you want to be more organized and streamlined in your home and or business, you may not want to start ripping things out of your cupboards or closets and then sit amongst the destruction and bemoan the fact that you are a failure…you will chose one area to deconstruct and then reconstruct. This will be the more realistic attainable success pattern that can set your transformation into motion. Realistic- A goal must feel both high and realistic to you. Make sure, however, that every goal represents real progress for you personally. Back to my 5k story….it would not have seemed realistic or attainable to me if the very first foray into race running, I would have chosen a half marathon. That would seem to overwhelming and impossible for me personally (as a non-runner) so I chose a more believable and attainable goal for me at that time. It both pushed me and relieved me that there was an end in sight and not just an eternal process of change! There’s no way I would have stuck with that. Side note…. I did finish that 5k race and beat all of my training times and have only wetted my appetite for tackling bigger goals….like a half marathon! Timely (or Tangible) – A goal should be given a time frame. It has to feel like you are up against the clock somehow in order to keep you engaged and passionate about it. Back to losing weight…I want to lose weight is not as compelling as, I want to fit into this dress by the time I go on vacation. That is more compelling and measurable and time sensitive. You are up against the clock now and time is extremely important and you will likely set out more of an organized game plan of attack if you have a definitive goal. Especially in business, this quarter we need to make X amount of dollars more than last quarter in order to make a profit. Ok…this is more tangible and you make your adjustments from there!
Goal-setting is such an important part of personal development and the feeling of being SUCCESSFUL. It’s such an individual definition but so important for all of us to get clear on what we want for your lives and our businesses. For more on personal development see Inspired Action Life Strategies
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