People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.
-Brian Tracy
Sandy is a lovely middle-aged woman who I have known over the last one year . She is a public officer single mother with three dependent children. We relate well and have the occasional banter during lunchtime break in the office. She worries about her financial situation and the state of the economy. She seeks my advice from time to time about what to do. I offer her advice from time to time…however, I am very careful not to impose my ideas on her.
I had the opportunity one day to explore her ideas about success , money and relationship. I knew I had to be gentle with her, so I asked her this question …what goals have you set to sort your finances and career in the next 5 years?. Sandy looked up at me puzzled, she stared away from me with head bowed and then looked up muttering, “I do not know” then made the next sentence that startled me… “I feel trapped working here but I have to pay my bills”
I felt sad and guilty asking her this question…The truth is Sandy is not the only one in this situation.
According to experts in the field of psychology, only 3 percent of adults have written goals that they work on every day. The other 97 percent have either vague or fuzzy goals or no goals at all. The top 3 percent that have clear, written , specific goals earn five and 10 times the amount of people without goals. This is astonishing given they both start at the same starting line in life with the same abilities and opportunities.
When you set goals, you develop a clear vision about the direction of your life.
In his book, what they don’t teach you in the Harvard Business School, Mark Cormack talks about a 1979 study of the graduating Harvard MBA students. Only 3 percent had set clearly written goals about their future. The study after 10 years showed the 3 percent who had clearly written goals were earning on the average 10 times more than the remaining 97 percent who had no goals or had set goals
My point is simple. Setting goals will propel upward towards success in life.
Why Set Goals?
Your ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the “master skill” of success
A person with clear written goals, written down, who works on them every day will run circles around a genius who is unsure about what he or she really wants.
Zig Ziglar says, “You must become a meaningful specific rather than a wandering generality”
A person with goals makes progress on even the roughest road and the face of the most incredible difficulties. A person without goals just goes back and forth even though the road is smooth and the course is clear.
This is why you see many people in their adult life bumping from one job to the other. You can only develop a rich mindset if you are focused and clear about what you want in life.
This brings me to a very important principle in goal setting…Idealization. Brian Tracy Motivational speaker, and bestselling author of Goals introduced me to this concept. I must admit I have been practicing idealization without knowing about it.
Idealization helped me to move from earning less than $5000 in my country to six-figure income in England within a decade.
Idealization is so simple and yet so powerful. All it requires is a pen, a pad of paper and yourself, plus a few minutes.
In idealization, you stand back, look at ever part of your life, and then decide on upon the ideal outcomes that you desire.
The key to idealization is to ask yourself question to help your creative mind come out with answers. The following are key questions to ask…
If everything were perfect in my life what will, what would it look like? What would it look like? What would I be doing? What would I be or have?
Perhaps the most important question that you will ever ask and answer, one that returns over and over again is this: What do I really want to do with my life?
What is it that you really want to do with your life? What is it that you really, really want to do? What is it you really, really, really want to do.
The truth is most people are really unclear and confused about this answer , and this is why most people accomplish far less than they are truly capable of achieving in their lives
The truth is you know what you want for yourselves a. Various studies going back to the times of Aristotle have come with one the same answer ….
You want to know the answer…take a guess
What you want above all is to be happy… However, you decide what will make you happy
Happiness is the common denominator to all people .
Everything you we do is an attempt to achieve our happiness in some way. A good way to check how well you are doing in life is to ask what percentage of the time you feel you are genuinely happy. The answer to this question will tell you how far you have come and how far you still have to go.
Inasmuch as the topic today is on happiness , I will like to leave you with four essential ingredients to happiness.
Brian Tracy identifies these four ingredients are common to every person, everywhere under every circumstances. They are:
- High levels of health and energy. if you have your health you have everything
- Loving relationships. The more you surrounded yourself with people who love and respect you and whom you love and respect , the happier and healthier you are.
- meaningful work, work that makes a difference and you do well
- Financial freedom and financial independence. We are only happy when we know that we have enough money so that we don’t have to worry about money all the time
When you have high levels of health and energy , good relationships, meaningful work and independence, you will be genuinely happy most of the time.
I believe having a rich mindset includes having the capacity to live a fully rounded and completely balanced life.
You need a variety of goals to be happy and keep your life in balance.
I shall explore how to start setting goals in the my next post
Think rich grow rich
