“Setting goals points us in the right direction and helps us clarify our values. But hanging on to goals when they no longer serve us is a recipe for misery.”
Repeat after me, My dream life ,career and income are possible. I have a plan and it’s in motion. I am going to make it happen no matter what.
Back in Pandemic times (oh wait, not very long ago!) I set a bold goal for myself. I decided to open my personal blog page in order to get publicity and funding. I took myself to one of the trending applications and started writing my first ever blog. I found half a dozen people interested in my blog but couldn’t get myself funding. I redesigned my page, sent my blogs to every possible contact on my list, made the blogs more interesting but nope! No funding.
In my mind, I was building the foundations of my empire, a new in demand blogging website; a young, internet-savvy female.
It didn’t even take me more than a month to stop posting and go back to my primary career choice.
Most would look at my abandonment of my goals that year as an unmitigated failure. But I look back and see that as one of the most valuable goals I ever set for myself. I will explain why later in this piece.
There are a million articles on the internet about how to set goals and how to achieve them. And we will surely try to cover some pointers here!
But I want to propose something far more subtle yet far more important: Often the strategic failure of our goals can be far more valuable than their achievement.
Most people see goals as golf balls that you tee up and beat, hoping to hit your mark. But goals are far more complicated than that. Sometimes it can be advantageous to set goals you know you are unlikely to achieve. Sometimes it is better to give up or change goals midstream. Sometimes it’s actually better to have no goals at all.
This article will break down the complexities of goal setting — when to set them, how to set them, and how to know when to give them up.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock your whole life, you know that goals can be a great source of satisfaction and purpose in our lives.
Goals give us something to look forward to, they give us direction. Goals help us track and measure our progress and understand our shortcomings. Goals are popular for a reason: they work.
When you set specific goals, they become measurable and actionable, which then allows you to track your progress. These are sometimes referred to as “SMART Goals.” SMART stands for:
● Specific
● Measurable
● Achievable
● Relevant
● Time-Bound
So, instead of saying ”lose weight”, you could say, “burn 4 kgs by april 30.” Now you know exactly what you need to do.
If you start working out of April 1st, you have 30 days to lose 4kgs. You can appropriately spread out your calorie intake and work out time per day!
Another benefit of setting specific goals is that they help you focus on the outcomes you want while ignoring all the extraneous distractions you’re bound to encounter. It’s easier to know what foods to cut when you know exactly how much weight you want to lose, and so on. Specific goals, when worked towards, can be a source of energy, motivation, and persistence.
The value of our goals is not in what we accomplish, but in the direction they give us. Goals orient us towards what we’d like in life and give us a little kick in the ass to start moving towards it. But if we discover on the way that actually, we don’t want that goal in our life, then we should drop it!
A lot of people get upset about this. They feel like a failure. So what? Failure is normal. Failure is how you learn. Better to fail sooner and pick a better goal now than to spend the next year of your life pursuing something that sucks.
By Maansee Bakhrey
Content Team ZUPERLY
