Do you know what the most important kind of goal is for your life?
We all have goals that we set and we know the importance of goal setting. And it’s one of those topics that gets beaten to death and a lot of us don’t want to hear about goal setting anymore.
We’re sick and tired of goal setting. But we know they’re necessary as well, and that’s why we always come back to them.
You do. I do. We all do goal setting at one level or another. Maybe you just do it mentally and you think about them from time to time. Other people are like me; I’m very, very strict about my goals. I’m always writing them down and refining them.
But there are different kinds, and this is a most critical aspect.
There is a type of goal where you define what you want to do; there is a type of goal where you define what you want to have; and there’s also a kind of goal where you define who you want to be – the kind of person you want to be.
It’s the third one – the goals you set on the type of person you want to be – that are the most pivotal, most important, and most influential in your life.
Your material wants (or even bigger wants than that), the things you would like to acquire, the things you would like to eventually achieve in your life? Some you’ll hit and some you won’t. Some will take longer than planned. Some you may get in less time than you planned. They’re going to be all over the map.
As an example, you may be at a certain financial position right now. Let’s say you’re earning $50,000 a year and you want to take that to $100,000. There are a number of different ways you could do that. You could set a goal to do that within the next year, the next six months, or the next three years, and you go after it. You may or may not hit the goal, and you may or may not try as hard as you can – although the whole point of goal setting is you do try and you go for it.
But this is a measurable, specific thing that you’re shooting for and you may or may not get there.
There are all kinds of circumstances and things that could come up that could prevent it from happening.
But think about the type of goal where you decide who you want to be, and the exercise of writing down your goals on a daily basis and reviewing them. Sure, you can have a plan that says I want to get from 50k to 100k and I’m going to do this, this, this, and this over the next X number of months or years and you do those things and that plan may or may not work.
But what if you started asking yourself or writing a goal down to say, “Here’s who I want to be.”
I want to be a positive and uplifting person. I want to be loving towards my family. Every time I see my family, I want them to feel excited in my presence. I want them to feel uplifted. I want them to feel inspired. When I meet new people I want them to feel like they just met somebody really interesting, and they want to get to know me at a deeper level. I want to set a goal to be the kind of person that follows through on every commitment I make to myself.
The goal of I’m going to achieve XYZ by a certain date (such as I’m going to lose 20 pounds by March 30th) is very results driven. It’s very achievement driven, and the timeline for that may change. You don’t know how quickly you can lose that weight and you want to be able to do it in a healthy way, so you may have to adjust that plan.
But who do you have to be to reach that weight?
You have to be the kind of person who commits to their goals, who does whatever it takes, who when they say they’re going to do something they do it and follow through and hold themselves accountable.
So here’s my challenge to you – or even call it a suggestion or tip…
Begin journaling on a daily basis, writing down where you currently are and, more importantly, where you want to go – goals. It’s very fun to set goals like the type of income you want to earn, the type of business you want to run, the trips you want to take, the material possessions you want to own. All those things are cool.
If you want to go to a conference next year to learn something new, write that down. That’s a great goal to have. You need to know how much money it’s going to take you to get there and all that.
But I also want you to start thinking about 2, 3, or even 4 “Who do I want to be?” type of goals.
What I found is when I started doing this, I started writing things down like:
- I want to be an inspiring person to be around for my family.
- I want my family to feel loved and excited when I’m around.
- I want my family to run and give me a huge hug when I walk in the door after being gone for a long time.
- That’s the kind of person I want to be.
When I write that down and remind myself this is who I want to be, I find that all those other goals come to me a bit more naturally. They come to me more easily. It’s because I’m acting and behaving in a way that’s congruent with those goals.
If I say I want to be a committed, dedicated person who follows through on her commitments and then I set a really, really aggressive goal like doubling my income in what some may deem an unrealistic period of time, I’m way more likely to hit that goal if I’m the kind of person who sticks to her commitments and then goes above and beyond the call of duty and does whatever it takes in any situation to create whatever I envision.
So that’s the difference. That’s the key. You may not have done this before. I know it was a relatively new concept for me. I was always writing down my material wants. I was always writing down the achievement-based goals and not the who do I want to be? kind of goals.
When I started doing that, it had such a deep impact on a daily basis.
In those moments of weakness where I wanted to break a commitment and go back into an old habit that would have prevented those cool goals from coming into my life, these being goals would remind me of the kind of person I need to be and I want to be and intend to be.
I want to live this way every single day, and so I write those goals down on a daily basis and it keeps me in check. It keeps me on track for where I want to go.
So do this. Have some fun with it. Think about the kind of person you want to be, write it down, explain it in as much detail and then do it daily and repeat it to yourself and start living this way.
All those material goals and wants are going to come to you and remember to include the intangible goals too!
Coach / Mentor Susie Briscoe 