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The Truth about Goal Setting

Written by Steve Goldberg

Sunday, 04 May 2008

For some people, setting goals comes naturally. For others, it is not even a worry. Many who set goals never achieve them. Why? Is it lack of planning? Lack of motivation? Lack of relevance to the rest of the person’s life? The inability to set and achieve goals is, for most people, a combination of all of the above. How can one jump over the hurdle, climb the mountain and succeed?

To be truly successful in setting and meeting goals, one must have a true understanding of why the goal is important and what will be needed to achieve the goal. Once the goal is set, and the necessary steps identified, follow-through and self-motivation become important. At the beginning of a project, plan, diet, or job, excitement is abundant and adrenaline fuels forward momentum. But as the months drag on, motivation is difficult and forward momentum slows. Friends and relatives will start to ask why you have not finished yet. You will begin to doubt yourself. In order to keep moving and meet your goal, you must stay focused and true to the core reason for setting the goal. In that way, you can achieve your desired results.

Identifying Your Need

Traditional goals such as New Year’s Resolutions to exercise, lose ten pounds or stop spending money do not usually last for the long-haul. With economies around the world in turmoil and obesity at epidemic levels, there should be plenty of motivation for people to set and achieve goals related to money and health. Yet, credit card debt levels continue to rise and national average sizes go up. Why? Until you identify your problem or need, and break it down to the most personal level, any goal you set will become meaningless eventually. Do you really want to lose ten pounds, or is your main goal to feel better about yourself? Do you want to eliminate debt for the sake of eliminating debt, or do you wish to save for a house, vacation or children? Whether the goal is related to health, financial independence, self-satisfaction, or happiness, meeting it relies upon believing wholeheartedly in the venture and taking every necessary step to meet it.

Goal Setting Gurus

People magazine routinely features ordinary people who have achieved extraordinary things. The thread that all of the stories have in common is that each person who achieved the extraordinary feat remained completely dedicated to the venture. Whether it was something others deemed worthy or frivolous—each achiever set the goal, made it part of their being, and kept going until they crossed the finish line. Following are some examples of people with ordinary and not so ordinary goals and their journey to achievement.

Cold Water Swimming

Lynne Cox is not your ordinary open-water swimmer. She started out that way, swimming on her local swim team in New Hampshire, later moving to California to train with Olympic caliber coaches. At age 15, she swam across the English Channel, breaking both the men’s and women’s world records for time. She continued swimming around the world, breaking records left and right. She set goals of breaking records for frequent open water swimming feats.

After a swim across the Cook Straits in New Zealand, Lynne’s momentum changed. She began to use swimming as a way to promote peace, swimming the Bering Strait between the United States and Russia, swimming the Beagle Channel between Chile and Argentina to promote peace between the two countries. She swam the Gulf of Aqaba between Egypt and Jordan as a peace journey. Around the world, she has traveled and brought together people from conflicting points of view by provoking curiosity about her ventures.

Recently, Lynn has contributed to scientific research by completing a number of extreme cold water swims in Antarctica and the Arctic circle. Swimming in water that is below freezing takes an extreme amount of focus and concentration, as well as planning and listening. Lynne swims in regular swimsuits, not wetsuits, and thus has no layer of protection between her skin and the water. To complete her record-breaking cold-water swims, she has had to be completely in tune with herself, monitoring herself and knowing when to go and when to stop. She has achieved her goals because she has not been stubborn and refused to quit—she has listened to herself, and her body and heeded its signals. Because of that, she has accomplished missions of peace, feats of science and personal satisfaction through swimming—something many would look upon as a frivolous goal. Lynn has turned swimming into more than exercise or competition.

Spanx

Women everywhere identify with the need to have comfortable undergarments, yet before Spanx came on the market, few comfortable, functional and practical undergarments existed for women. In 1998, Sara Blakely cut the feet off of a pair of pantyhose to wear under a pair of cream colored pants, and a business was born. Blakely’s journey to the top was not as easy as it sounds. It took years of hard work and creative, out of the box thinking to make her brand the empire that it is today. Comfortable hosiery is not a national security crisis, but with her product, Blakely has saved the lives of many a woman.

She built her brand from the bottom up. Realizing that she was on to an idea that could have mass appeal, she wrote a patent for her product. Her patent was approved, and she hit the road looking for someone to manufacture her hosiery. Once she found a willing partner, she engaged in early “guerilla marketing,” hitting the road to large department stores, giving demonstrations, hiking up her pants, skirts, etc. to show potential customers. One of Oprah Winfrey’s acquaintances bought a pair, and the rest is history.

During each interview Blakely has given since achieving her remarkable success, she has cited one key to reaching her goals—she listens to her gut. From the minute she started working on her product, she let her intuition guide her to make choices that would be beneficial to her and to other women. Her goal was not necessarily to create an undergarment empire—it was to provide quality, comfortable hosiery to women and make their lives easier and more enjoyable. With every decision she made and continues to make, she keeps that guiding principle in mind and leaves ideas alone that do not instinctively feel right. Women everywhere thank her.

Passion Produces Results

Each of the real-life examples cited relay stories of unconventional goal-setters. Swimming and pantyhose hardly seem like the stuff that dreams are made of; however, the success of Lynne Cox and Sara Blakely shows that as long as the goal is important to the person pursuing it, and they infuse their pursuit with interest, curiosity and passion, great things will happen. The key to successful goal setting and goal meeting is to identify you true need and pursue fulfilling that need with all of your heart.

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