A lot of us have set out the goals that we want to achieve in 2018. Whether it’s business, family life, financial, career or social goals we have set them out and we expect to achieve them by 31st December 2018.
How successful have you been in the past? Personally, at the end of the year, I find I have achieved 50% or less of what I set for myself to achieve. So what am I doing wrong?.
I stumble across an interesting TED talk by Reggie Rivers, his first bold statement was that “IF YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE GOALS STOP FOCUSING ON THEM!” This caught my interest as it goes against what I had learned so far, I listened to the entire presentation.
[bctt tweet=”Break your goals into tasks that’ll bring you closer to the goal.” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
Reggie broke down that focusing on the goal makes you unable to use your energy on actually achieving the Goal. Moreover, more often than not you are not in control of the outcome and are only in control of your behavior and reactions.
We all want to make money in our business by the end of the year, but you can’t force customers to buy from you, you can make the product as good as possible, yes, but you really can’t guarantee the outcome i.e. profits.
For instance, if you want to lose weight you end up weighing yourself every week. Of course, those who struggle with weight like I, realize that this does not lead anywhere fast.
In fact, you end up frustrated and abandon the whole weight loss journey. You are focusing on the outcome.
He suggests that you should focus on WHAT IS IN YOUR CONTROL, your behavior.
Hmm… what does this mean? He says that you should focus on your behavior, which you are in control of, to achieve your goal.
[bctt tweet=”Focus on what’s in your control – your behaviour” username=”SheLeadsAfrica”]
Assume you are able to achieve the goal and perform the tasks to achieve it. In the weight loss scenario, you should focus on what you are eating, how much you exercise and what you drink.
We need to break the goal into smaller tasks that we can perform easily and fast while working towards the main huge ambitious goal. Reggie suggests that you should have tasks that you can perform TODAY, TOMORROW and THIS WEEK.
I like the idea that you break up your big goal into smaller manageable bits. What does this achieve?
- You remain motivated as you achieve something every day and week. Every small step moves you closer to the big goal.
- You can dream big and break the large goal into smaller action points and you end up achieving an ambitious goal. This works even when you need to save or invest. This I can testify to.
- You keep on revising your plan every so often and thereby are able to make necessary changes to move you closer to the goal. This is particularly helpful in business so that where you can change a strategy that does not work before you lose too much money.
- It helps you be disciplined on simple tasks and eventually bigger ones. This is a way to get rid of bad habits like procrastinating. If you are accountable on a daily and weekly basis you notice your weakness and work on it more often to improve yourself.
- It actually keeps you on track as you end up spending the necessary time, without getting distracted, to achieve your eventual goal. Normally when a task is huge we are quick to allow ourselves to be distracted away from it.
In conclusion, I think this is a great concept to adopt in business and generally in life, deal with what you are in control of.
Forget what is not in your control because you can’t change it anyway.
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