The Problem with Goal Setting is…

Many personal development gurus have given their own versions on goal setting and all have the same end objective.

To improve your overall current position, whether it is in a spiritual, financial, social, health, family or business sphere.

Only you know what goals you need in those areas but the question really is what are you willing to do to actually achieve them?

But what you must first ask yourself is what overriding goal do you need now to drive all your other goals and how strong is your desire and motivation to achieve them?

You need to consider for a moment what your overall mission is before you set you overall goal and what impact is it going to have on your life. This will then dictate what you have to do in the short term, medium term and long term to achieve it.

One role of being a leader is to set goals, but you cannot set goals in ignorance of yourself and the people you serve. Goal setting requires conditions to be met before during and after they a have been set, or they will merely become a meaningless wish list

To stop it becoming meaningless wish list of no consequence you must first understand who you really are, which is the very premise of setting authentic achievable goals.

Only once you have become your true self and know what you really want to do, with all your heart and feeling, will the goals you write have any deep meaning to you, only then will you have a chance of achieving them.

But then believing in your goals is one thing achieving them is another. Many people go through the process of setting goals in a well-meaning way, following all the steps that one might follow but how many of you have followed all the rules set so called realistic goals and still waiting for things to happen?

The major reason for non-achievement of goals is that your unconscious and conscious mind is not in harmony. Your conscious self wants to do one thing but your unconscious mind wants to do something else. It is a state of personal imbalance; the result is either a confused state or an unexpected result.

Creating goals on personal imbalance produces stress frustration and non-achievement and I know I’ve made that mistake. I thought I could become an accountant based on incomplete information on my personal strengths but basically I was fooling myself. My ego, my position and status were leading me to make decisions that were really not grounded on who I really was. I was miserable being an accountant, not that I’ve got anything against accountants!

So if you’re not achieving your goals then what do you do? Try again, try harder you know the saying winners never quit right? I know what I want right?

Of course you do, the trouble is your not listening very well, you’re ignoring signals your subconscious is telling you. So it’s not a matter of quitting it’s matter of adjusting your seat slightly or even may be changing it all together!

Luckily for me I did see the light and I completely changed to a different career, which proved to be very fruitful and rewarding for a number of years.

But quitting definitely not, your just moving from an A road to the Motorway where you’ll be moving a lot faster and getting there much sooner and you will feel more powerful for doing it.

So when are you changing?

A vital part of setting and achieving your goal is to understand the role of your internal Reticular Activating System (RAS) and stress.

The RAS lies in the brain stem, which controls wakefulness by sending signals to the cerebral cortex, (upper part of the brain) which controls thought processes.

It works by filtering conscious and subconscious thoughts.

For example you have just bought a new car and immediately afterwards you begin to notice all the same make of cars you have just bought.

It’s your RAS, which has heightened your awareness of this car as a result of your unconscious connection with your own car of the same make and model.
It acts as a filter between your conscious and unconscious mind, which can be effected by stress.

That’s why it’s very important when you begin the process of setting goals that you are in a restful state and are reasonably stress free. As stress interferes with the filtering process between the conscious and unconscious mind and creates false expectations, which is often when goals are not achieved.

The RAS automatically brings relevant material to your attention and it is this function, which helps you to achieve your goals as long as you’re relaying all the right messages to your subconscious.

Understanding yourself, listening to your body and sending the right messages to your subconscious are all vital for goal achievement and progress. If your RAS is out of balance your likely hood of achieving your goal becomes doubtful

So not only is it important to set goals which resonate with your body it’s also important to be reasonably stress free. Your body is a complex and marvellous instrument which can allow you to achieve anything you set out to do as long you feed it with the right messages.

For example setting a goal and then thinking of all the excuses why your not going to achieve it will send the wrong messages to your RAS and sure enough you will not achieve it!

As Henry Ford said in so many words :-

If you think you can you can, if you think you cant you cant! And that is true for anything.

So when you start to think about setting goals here’s a few pointers

1. Be in restful state
2. Listen to your body not your ego
3. Know yourself know your strengths
4. Think about your ultimate mission and goal
5. Change to the motorway if you have to
6. Send positive messages to your RAS
7. Don’t quit change course!

Finally I like to finish with a few words from a wise man I know who says:

Can wealth give Happiness? Can Position give Happiness? Can
Relationships give us Happiness? All this in isolation won’t give us
happiness at all. Yes, a sum total of this would give us happiness.
But the human tendency is that we tend to go to extremes.
Sometimes we get so engrossed in relationships, money, that we forget everything else.
We have to keep a balance in our life just like we tell a child to keep a balance between his studies and games.
As it is fondly said, “All work and no play
makes’ Jack a dull boy”

We have to build our faith not through money,
not through fame, not through Position,
not through Knowledge but only through
EXPERIENCE