Great People Works

David Campbell wrote a book I read twenty years ago called "If You Don't Know Where You Are Going, You Will Probably End Up Somewhere Else.  Many of us travel through life with few if any specific goals and tend to believe that either a higher power is in control of our destiny, somehow our dreams will come true or that it is all just a throw of the dice anyway. Personally, I have a hard time believing a higher power would give us the capacity for rational decision-making and free choice and then control our every step. What would be the point? Those of us who have or do set goals have often been frustrated from past efforts at goal setting. We set high goals, sometimes very lofty noble goals but still failed to achieve them for a variety reasons which usually boil down to four problem areas:

1) The goals were nice ideas but did not truly represent what we valued, or

2) We had conflicts between written or written and unwritten goals (such as simply not enough time in the day) which led to frustration and a failure , or

3) Our goals were not SMARTER goals or Living Goals, and so were not integrated into our daily life and standards, objectives, with KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and lifestyle choice considerations, (in short they were poorly conceived and not well thought through), or

4) We did not hold ourselves accountable for achieving the goals and neither did anyone else who mattered, or perhaps we let that relationship slide too

The answer to all of these problems is simply that most of us do not really know how to set goals. We have never been trained in how to evaluate our values so that we can set value-based goals, and there is much more to goal-setting. There is a second phase called goal attainment which is a vital part of actively pursuing our goals on a daily basis using a variety of techniques to support our efforts. Simply creating a list of goals or day dreaming about them will not get you there. It might serve as a benchmark to remind you of what you don't have in your life, but it is not a plan that is integrated into your life and the choices you make every day. For example, unless you set balanced goals for each of the major dimensions of your life you could very well succeed at one set of goals while losing ground in other areas. Put differently, you could be one of the millions of people who are successful business people, star talents, etc. who are visiting a psychotherapist or psychiatrist because other aspects of their lives were largely ignored. These imbalances show up as symptoms like addictive behaviors, emotional immaturity, repeated failed relationships and other problems which left out of the goal attainment process will continue to be problems. In order to be healthy and happy you need to have a set of goals for each dimension of your life and these goals need to work together so that you minimize conflicts between goals and the time you have to achieve them. This is a daunting task for most of us because we have never been trained or learned how to attain our goals. Oh, yeh, we heard that working hard will get it us there, but learning to work smarter in goal attainment will get us there faster and keep our lifes balanced and happy along the way. It's not about what you will have in the future, it is about becoming who you want to be now and holding that picture through your life as you arrive at the milestones you have set as goals for yourself. That's what most people don't realize. Goal-setting is not so much about the future as it is today and how what you do today, your decisions, choices and actions will deliver the goals you have established for your life. Most people will realize at some point that they are not as good at goal attainment as they would like but unfortunatley, most of them will also simply give up, fall into a rut or continue coasting through life as the possibly of achieving various goals slowly slip away. A courageous few will realize they need a coach or mentor or someone they can rely on to give them balanced feedback, suggestions, ideas and tools to make the process effective as well as hold them accountable. " The physician who treats himself has a fool for a patient" is true, as in most things when we are the only one holding us accountable. We all need a fresh set of objective eyes and a different perspective to help us maintain balance and honesty in pursuing our goals. High performance athletes, top executives and others rely on a team of managers, agents, coaches and personal assistants to help them excel in specific areas of their lives. Top Executives at most global conglomerates are expert Goal Setters and Goal Attainers.

This is why they are paid the big, often embarrassingly large paychecks. They are paid to be a Leader who helps develop and hold the vision of where the company is going and requires others to establish specific goals to achieve them, including how, when and so on and then he or she then holds them accountable for results. Many of us are not top executives because we do not know how to do this or gave up trying to compete at those high performance levels. However, goal attainment is something that can be learned and practiced and honed to a fine art much more easily now with the internet and phone capabilities. We have a lot more knowledge nowadays about how to do it and it can be easily shared, practiced and coached to perfection.

While success does not depend on luck or fate, it does carry a certain amount of risk. You must first step out of your comfort zone, or get off the couch and do something. If you hope to win the lottery you must at least buy a lottery ticket. If you want to succeed in something else or have a balanced life you must take some steps and create some plans to bring it into reality or you are just day dreaming. Perhaps you don't want to be a top executive of a global conglomerate, maybe you'd just like to get a better job, own a home, get married and have a family, start a new career, turn your hobby into your lifelihood, spend more or less time with relatives, retire early to a home near the ocean or have a private fishing cabin in the mountains. Whatever you want, requires goals and plans to make it happen. Sometimes, I think there is a portion of the people in the world who would much rather be lazy and simply complain about the bad breaks they got in life, the handicaps that limit them or the bad cards they were dealt, than actually do something to improve their lot. They miss out on the fun and excitement of seeing themselves actually achieve their dreams. It is a scary process if you have never done it, but it is so rewarding and fulfilling when you do that I've never heard anyway say they wished they had not done it. Those people who do understand their own values, set SMARTER goals, eliminate or minimize negative attitudes and bad habits from their live and learn how to influence and lead others are happy and live balanced lives. They find time to stay healthy, maintain their weight, cultivate relationships with family and friends, progress their career, develop spiritually and spend time with their children and hobbies. Many of them have taken the time to learn how to set and attain their goals and many of them have been coached or mentored in the process. It is a wise axiom that if all we think about is what we fear, then all we will see is what scares us. Instead, we should focus on where we are going and who we are becoming, "keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole." More accuractely, you should determine how many donuts you will have, when and how you will get them and how you will measure your progress in getting them, what rewards will you give yourself as you progress towards them and what punishments will you mete out to yourself for your failure to do what is required. And, if you need some guidance in doing this get a coach, someone to teach you how to do this effectively and help hold you accountable until you get good at doing it yourself. That's where I come in.

I'm Gregg and I've got 60 years experience at goal setting, much of it through trial and error learning, observing others, and still more as a result of specific training, coaching and guidance that I received so that I could coach others. You can call me at: 972-221-3504.  Let's talk and see if Executive or Life Coaching might be right for you.