Goal Setting - Does It Really Work?

Hi Sledger’s,

Today I want to give you a somewhat controversial view on Goal Setting - what me - controversial Since the 1940’s we have been taught that you should decide on your goals, short and long term, write them down and apply a timescale to achieving them.

Does this work? Yes and no. Now you know I never sit on the fence so let me explain what I mean here. I have been studying the effects of goal setting for some time now after experiencing some disappointment with it in the past. Over the years I have set myself many goals - some I wrote down and some I didn’t. I have achieved a number of them but failed on the others. So why was that? Well after investigating this further I found that the goals that I had the strongest emotional ties too I achieved and the others I didn’t. To further test this I interviewed a number of people who were goal setting fanatics and asked them to tell me honestly what their results have been over the years. The result was the same - if the emotion attached to the goal wasn’t really strong then these goals were not achieved. Now I have to tell you that it took a lot of persuasion for these guys to tell me the truth as they were total believers in goal setting. There is nothing wrong with this.

What about writing them down or not? Well some of the goals I have achieved I never wrote down. I also didn’t have to remind myself each day that I wanted to achieve these goals. The desire was so strong that I just made them happen. When you think about it this makes perfect sense. Most of us have had a very strong feeling to do something in the past. This might be buying something that you don’t have the cash for at the moment but so strongly desire it it keeps you awake at night. A car, house, jewelry - I sure you can recall something. And you found the money didn’t you? Or what about that hot girl or boy that you wanted to be with so much? You found the courage to ask them out didn’t you? But I am pretty sure that you wouldn’t have written these down using the SMART goal setting process.

Now before I start opening my hate mails from those of you who are goal setting fanatics let me tell you that I am not against the process at all and still use it to this day. It is the key first step in the three stage success process:

Decide What You Want
Plan How To Get It
Do What It Takes To Get It

What I do is make this really strong inside. I don’t use goals I have “desires” and I also have an emotional driver associated with it. This is the big “Why”. As you probably know we don’t want the latest Mercedes saloon because we want to go and visit Aunty Ethel in it - we want it to show those around us that we have really arrived and that their car is a piece of crap. That’s power. Status or having something better than your neighbour is a strong and compelling reason to drive you forward to achieve your desire.

So the key to goal setting and actually achieving them is:

Make your goals desires and want them so much that it burns you inside
Don’t have too many going on at once

The second point is important as well. Most of the time I only have one goal at a time going on. Focus is everything.

So that’s the skinny on goal setting. Throw away all those old manuals that tell you to write a long list of goals. Just get emotional about a few and you will get anything that you want.

Sledge

Posted on April 11th, 2008 by Sledge
Filed under: Success