Make a change: The Power of Setting Goals
Posted by Ben Lumley on May 5, 2010 in Goals, Success | 20 comments
photo credit: E & H Baxendale Ltd
Dreams are wonderful, but they are not enough. ~ Jim Rohn
It’s not just enough to have a bunch of wishes. They don’t get you very far in life sadly. To turn a dream into reality you need more. More structure to support it, more direction to shape it and a better idea of time so you can hit your deadline.
90% of the people on the planet go through life with just a wish list. They have a mental note of all the things on their lists but no concrete ways of making them happen.
A foolish man built a house
Imagine if you passed by my home and you saw me working hard in the hot sun. As you looked closer you saw I was building a wall. “What are you doing?” you ask. “I’m building a house” comes the reply. I’ve got your interest now, you want to know more so you ask “what’s it going to look like?” “I’m not sure yet, I’m just building this wall for now and I’m going to carry on until I finish.”
Now by this point you’d think I was out of my mind right? Sure you would. You can’t build a house like that. To build a magnificent structure you needs plans and diagrams. You need to know how long, how high, where the windows go, how much it will cost, what the room layout will be, what materials to use and how it all is supposed to look at the end. To build a house any other way would be absurd wouldn’t it?
But how many of us have this kind of structure for our dreams and wishes? If you have no structure how do you expect to turn them in to a tangible reality? You can’t. This is the reason most people fail repeatedly, give up and go home, because they have no structure to see them through.
Let’s set some goals
So what I’m going to ask you to do now is go back through your wish list that you made last time and pick out 12 key items that really stand out or are really important to you. Which 12 would, if you set to work on them, bring the most happiness and joy into your life? Don’t just pick any old 12 though. As you go through your wish list try to group your selection into the following 3 categories:
- 4 wishes you want to realise in 1 years time
- 4 wishes you want to realise in 3 years time
- 4 wishes you want to realise in 5 years time
Once you have 4 in each you’ll have more than enough to keep you going for the next little while and give you a focus that separates you from those around you. Imagine what your life would be like in 5 years time if you’d accomplished these 12 things. A pretty exciting thought isn’t it?
If you want, you can go for 16 goals and add 4 wishes you want to realise by 10 years time. That’s absolutely fine but I know some of you wont want to look that far ahead.
Now you have your 12 or 16 goals that will occupy you for the next 5 to 10 years we need to give them some structure and get them to work for us. To do this I want you to take the time and write a paragraph for each of the goals from each of the categories, explaining in detail what you want and what it will mean to you to accomplish it. Do this in a journal, on your computer or on a blank piece of paper. We’re going to keep this though so it needs to be placed somewhere that you can consistently come back to it. Take the time to do this now and then carry on reading.
Once you’ve completed your paragraphs you now have some really important long-term goals to work towards. That fact in itself should get you fired up! If you’ve never been able to focus on what you wanted before now you should be completely clear as to what you want to achieve.
Stepping Stones
Finally we need to create ourselves some short-term goals, some stepping-stones to get us there. These will be a handful of goals that can last a day, a week, a month or six but no longer than a year. I’ll give you an example so you can better understand this part of the process.
One of my goals for this year is to write a book for young people on success and how to maximise their opportunities in life. That’s a 1 year goal. My stepping stone for this at the moment is to complete 1 chapter in draft form every two weeks. You see for me to sit a write a book is a massive undertaking but I know I could sit and work on a chapter every two weeks. When I’ve completed all those stepping-stones and it’s finished in draft format, I’ll create some more steps to help me reach my ultimate goal or getting it published.
You need to create some stepping-stones. Maybe they will be for the 1 year goals you now have fully written out. They could quite easily be steps for the 5 or 10 year goals though. It’s really whatever works for you at the end of the day.
So now you should have a list of 12 or 16 specific goals. I keep mine in my notepad and take them around with me everywhere I go. You might place yours on the wall in your office or on your fridge or turn them into you desktop wallpaper. The trick will be to revisit them regularly to check whether you are on course or not.
All you need to do now is start. Start working on your stepping-stones everyday or every week. Take some action today to start making this happen.
Next week we’re going to look at motivation and how to keep driving yourself on to success.
Until next time.
Similar Posts:
- Make a Change – Start taking action now.
- Make a Change – A Review
- Make a change: Working out what you want
- Make a change – Get Motivated
- Make a Change – It’s all in the mind
Ben Lumley writes about Success and Personal Achievement at 6aliens.com. He is a Personal Achievement Coach and Motivational Speaker.
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“I know some of you wont want to look that far ahead.” You may have read my mind
As you know, I have a head start on the first part of this because this is what you suggested I do for GAB but since I have to confess I didn’t yet get as far as organising the stepping stones, it was good to see this written out. Thank you
As for fitting my personal goals into the scheme, that will be an interesting undertaking. As I suspected when I wrote them, some are just a little too flippy floppy to prepare stepping stones for. How do you write stepping stones towards loving more for example ?!
Anyway, thanks for this great second part. Can’t wait to see what you have next
Stepping stones can make or break any goal so they are crucial to get in place.
As for writing stepping stones towards loving more you could set a little task to show loving that you could complete each day, like telling someone how special they are once a day.
Oooh, that’s a great idea. I could have a hit list of people I purposefully choose to love more on a daily basis
Thank you 
Hey Ben,
I like the stepping stones idea a lot. A lot of the folks I know either set long term goals but they’re not able to bridge the distance to them with step by step goals, or they set short term goals which eventually lead nowhere.
This is why thinking long term and short term, being a visionary, a strategist and an Aaaaaction Man is important
Yup lots of people do the massive long term goals and never work out a strategy to get there.
We do an exercise in schools where we get a student to try and throw a ball into a bucket from the other side of the room. Most attempts miss because they are just too far away. After each failed attempt we move the student a step closer to the bucket and get them to try again. It’s a great exercise because it really shows that by taking some smalls steps to get you closer you can end up scoring consistently.
Hi Ben,
I’m very excited! I’d like to stop and say something more profound, but I need to go and work on my wish list!
Topi
Thanks Topi. Hope there are some amazing things on that list.
I like your stepping stone analogy. I think that creating small and large goals is critical.
I am addicted to my molskine notebook. I keep everything in there so I can track my progress. You have to have a map for where you are going or else you will never know if you get there.
-Joshua Black
The Underdog Millionaire
I love my moleskine notebook. I always have mine with me.
As you say Joshua, the map is really important. Knowing where you’re heading is vital but also knowing the roads you need to take is just as important.
Great post love the use of metaphor good job
Nice post Ben. I really like the idea of stepping stones. That’s such a neat way of explaining it. Good luck with the series
Thanks Matthew. I never set out for it to be such a powerful analogy but it would appear that people really find it useful!
I’ve written down the things I want to have and those I wish to do. I’m liking where this is going Ben. I’ll work on providing those details and adding them to my file over the weekend. Thanks!
Excellent Julius. Next week we’re going to look at how to move your goals on to the next stage
Hi Ben,
I’m enjoying the exercise. The point that resonates with me in this post is writing the meaning for accomplishing our goals. This inspires motivation.
Cheers,
Kim
Thanks Kim. I’m actually talking about motivation in the next part later next week. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that just as much
hi ben,
i am going to try out the exercise and get back to you on the results but thanks for taking time out to illustrate more on stepping stones because an idea came to mind.
take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.
I’m glad it’s sparked an idea for you Ayo. Thanks for stopping by
Thinking of your short-term goals as stepping stones is a great way to push yourself through a project, but I think one additional suggestion would be to attempt to beat your own goals. If you give yourself one week to do something, try to finish it in five days instead!
That’s interesting Steve. Would it not be the same motivation though if you set the original deadline as 5 days?