For most, our life is not headed in the direction we would like it to. When I was first taught about goals, I got to the point that I despised hearing about them much less establishing one. Goals for this. Goals for that. I was told to write them down daily and evaluate what I did the day before that brought me closer to my target—everyday! Now I realize that as important as goals are, (even daily ones) we must chart the course of life in a way we can remain motivated and avoid giving up. Just as you can become frustrated with a goal that is unattainable, you can react the same by overdoing it. Very few, if any, can honestly establish daily goals and follow the criteria we set forth in the previous chapter, including this one, without giving up.
I consider myself a relatively motivated person that attempts to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. I have found it very difficult to establish and maintain daily goals. Beginning is easy. Finishing is another story. Daily to-do lists or accomplishment lists are another story. Each day I write down the things that I need to accomplish the following day. As they are completed, I check them off approaching each one in order. Do I always accomplish all of the items I wrote down for that day? Absolutely not! Some may remain for several days until completion for one reason or another.
The point is that they remain until I have completed them. It’s easy to tell you to write down what you want to do each day. I could suggest that you write your day’s accomplishments. But how realistic is that? You may do that for several days or weeks but how about a year from now? Statistically few, if any, would continue that type of goal setting on a daily basis.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying daily goals are unnecessary. What I am saying is that you must be realistic in your actions. I am not interested in just motivating you, but rather giving you ways to make a real lasting change in your life. In order to do so, we must use principles that are easy to adhere to although the goal itself may be difficult. Otherwise we will give up when, in all actuality, the goal we were headed for was blocked only by the steps we took to get there.
Let’s take a close look at how to establish the course you want your life headed on. Remember, the road you follow is in your hands.
You Must Be Honest With Yourself. Honesty is the best policy. If you are headed west, you can believe you are headed south indefinitely and it will not change your direction. In fact, what it will do is cause you to be more determined, blinded and defiant to the truth causing you to head further and further toward the wrong destination. Be honest with yourself about the direction your life is headed and whether you will do what it takes to change it. Also be honest about the goals you establish.
We discussed being sure your goals were tailored for you. It is equally important, however, to be sure you are willing to follow them through. You can establish a goal with all the criteria necessary to follow it through and fail based on your mind set at the time.
I realize we have used weight loss as an example more than once, but I do so because it is easy for most to relate to. You have often seen people begin diets and end them before they were completed. Provided these goals were established correctly and they were
put to the test we have outlined, it would become obvious that the individual didn’t have the mindset to complete it.
Goals take change just as life does. Should you decide today that you are going to chart a new course for your life, you must be willing to change. It may be a change in your mind set, surroundings or some type of action, but you will have to change. If change is not in your vocabulary, then accomplishing a goal that requires it will not be part of your life. Just mentioning the word change frightens people. The strategy for successful change takes the following main steps:
- When you change your thinking, you change your beliefs.
- When you change your beliefs, you change your expectations.
- When your expectations change, your attitude will change.
- When you change your attitude, you change your behavior.
- When you change your behavior, you change your performance.
- When you change your performance, you change your life.
We often make two bad mistakes:
- We wait for God to change our circumstances.
- We wait for our circumstances to change our behavior.
All of us have desired results in our lives. Goals we want accomplished. Things we wish to attain. Changes we wish to make. None of these, however, are attainable without changing ourselves.
So be honest with yourself about your goals and realize you must be willing to change. Then and only then will you attain truly desired results in your life.
Be Specific. When deciding where you want your life to be, a vague description will not bring you any closer to that destination. You must be specific concerning your goals. “I want to own my own business in five years” is not a specific goal. You will be no closer to reaching it than if you said nothing at all.
As you map out your life, think of the bottom line. In other words, delete all the “fluff” and narrow in on precisely what you want. You can do so by realizing the end result of your goal. Let’s take several examples of this so that you may see what it is I am trying to relate to you.
Should you have a family goal to change your life by being a better spouse. What is the end result of that goal? In other words, what exactly are you trying to improve? Is it patience? Anger? Helping around the house? Maybe it’s being a better listener. Regardless of what it is, you must define it if you are going to re-route your life.
A specific goal in this area may be “I want be a better spouse by learning to listen better and having more patience with my mate.” Now you can work on those areas and develop specific action steps to do them. Although a realistic time period should be established, with goals that involve change from within do not become discouraged should you not make your deadline. Real change takes place gradually, never suddenly.
Another example may involve your spiritual life. People set goals to read their Bible more often. Although there is nothing wrong with that goal, something is missing. You need to define the goal more specifically in detail. A more specific goal would be, I will read my Bible daily beginning 2026. Or I will read the entire Bible in one year, reading a specific
amount daily. Now you have not only defined what it is you want to do, but exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Get the picture?
Being specific in your goal setting will not only allow you to establish goals that are realistically attainable, but also place you on the path you have chosen for your life.
I am a firm believer that there is no such thing as luck with few exceptions (i.e. lottery, etc.). People who have begun with nothing and ended with something had a specific vision of what they wanted and made sacrifices as well as changes. Sam Walton didn’t decide one day that he would just open up a store and see what would happened. His vision and goal was specific. He desired to provide America with a discount center that under one roof people could find the best prices with the best service. He didn’t waiver. He was specific in his desires and honest with himself about the goals he set out to accomplish.
Have you had difficulty in accomplishing your goals? If so, I urge you to evaluate how specific they are. Odds are you will find that they need some fine-tuning. Until you know specifically what you want, you cannot lay out a plan to attain it, and with no plan there’s no hope for a goal becoming a reality. It will remain a dream, indefinitely.
Establish Short and Long Term Goals. As you write down goals for your life, it is imperative that you chart them out both short and long term. Most individuals will establish long term goals without looking at the short term as well. That’s like learning to run before learning to walk! Long term goals are those goals that are established for the long-term. In order to reach these goals we must have stepping-stones. These stepping-stones are known as short-term goals. True you can have short-term goals with no long-term outlook, but somewhere down the line you will be facing a black wall for tomorrow.
Let’s say you establish a financial goal to accumulate a specific amount of money. But your real underlying interest is in becoming debt free.
Although your short term goal of accumulating certain assets is important toward becoming debt free, years later you could find yourself in the same situation you are in when you started without laying out your goals and action steps on a long term basis.
By looking far enough ahead, you can lay out a plan including the obstacles that may arise along the way. Without looking far enough ahead, chance and circumstance will determine where you go. Short-term goals on the other hand enable you to attain your long- term goals, and having goals in general increase efficiency and effectiveness, making it easier for you to make decisions.
Now that we have discussed the reasons for goals as well as how to establish them, I want to give you the opportunity to establish your own. On separate paper, take the next few minutes to establish your short and long term goals in life. Use the following summary to work by as you chart out a course for your life.
No one can make you do this part. It’s up to you and you alone. Just remember that you chose to make the initiative. If you don’t follow through, you’re establishing the goal (both short and long term) of remaining where you are at in life with chance and circumstance being your navigator.
- Determine if your goals are desired for you by asking the three following questions:
- Does this goal inflict pain on anyone?
- Will my goals cause me to turn my back on God by placing their
accomplishments and their attainment higher than he places on my priority list? - Does praying about those goals cause an “uneasiness” within my spirit?
- Look at yourself from the outside in
- Stay focused/Avoid excuses
- Be honest with yourself about your goals
- Be specific
Should you follow the above criteria and have a yes answer to the above questions, you are well on your way to the success in life you desire. No one said it was going to be easy. As the old saying goes “Nothing worthwhile ever is.” There should be no argument that God is in charge of our ultimate destiny. We, however, have a choice of which path we follow in this life. Just as you would prepare a map for a vacation to somewhere you have never traveled, so also should you prepare your real map for life?
Hopefully by now you can see that success means so much more than money. As a matter of fact, money is only one facet of being successful. Truly successful people have much more than financial freedom. Truly successful people have relationships, loving relationships.
There are probably many of you reading this book that are caught somewhere between surrendering to God and believing in God. Be assured there’s quite a difference. Let me explain.
Years ago there were a variety of scandals that took place throughout the Christian community. I recall a specific one that literally shocked the strongest believers. A man who appeared dedicated to God, his family and his ministry fell from grace. Not once, but twice. I believe the thing that shocked everyone the most was his superficial lifestyle, background, and outspoken adversity toward the very thing he fell from.
Not long after that incident I came to know of several people who literally threw away their Bibles and haven’t been to church since. I found that hard to swallow but, as hard as it was, it was true. So what’s the point? These individuals were hurt and found it hard to forgive, right? That’s partially true, but the real truth comes in what I spoke of earlier. Believing in something is an act that anyone can do by simply expressing words. A relationship is totally different. Unfortunately, the people I spoke of before placed their faith in a man, not God.
Although there are no statistics or scientific barometer to measure success in people, I have yet to see true happiness in a person who doesn’t have at least one loving relationship in life. I told you in previous chapters about the sign I have on the door of my office that reads, “I don’t know the secret to success, but I do know the secret to failure—trying to please everyone!” This sign, although entertaining and true to a certain point, doesn’t express the total truth. That’s because the secret to success is being unveiled for you and all that seek to find it. Loving relationships beginning with the highest source are the key to the success this world is searching for.
Anger often blocks us from enjoying these relationships. As a story goes, there was a little boy with a bad temper. His father gave him a bag of nails. He told the boy to hammer a nail in the back fence whenever he lost his temper.
The first day the boy had driven 37 nails into the fence. Each successive day, however, he nailed fewer nails. He discovered it was easier to hold his temper than to drive those nails into the fence.
Finally the day came when the boy didn’t lose his temper at all. When He told his father about it, the father suggested that the boy now pull out one nail for each day that he was able to hold his temper. The days passed and the young boy was finally able to tell his father that all the nails were gone.
The father took his son by the hand and led him to the fence. He said, “You have done well, my son, but look at the holes in the fence. The fence will never be the same.
“When you say things in anger, they leave a scar just like this one. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out. It won’t matter how many times you say I’m sorry, the wound is still there. A verbal wound is as bad as a physical one.”
Will loving relationships bring you money? Not necessarily. But my question is, Will money without a relationship with God and family bring you happiness? And if you answer that question as I believe you will, I could go one step further. Can you have true fulfilling success in life without happiness? That joy, happiness and fulfillment can motivate even the least motivated to shoot for the stars. After all what is financial success without someone to share it with? Many fail to realize that having a loving relationship with God through Christ is the key to success. Sure many go to church. More say they believe. A relationship, however, is an intimate communion between you and God, your family and your friends. Just as you speak to those around you, so also can you speak to God. Look to Him as your source for everything. He is the best advisor for all life’s questions you will ever have. With Him as the captain of your ship, charting your course in life will be much easier not to mention a whole lot more enjoyable.
Likewise, friends are a very rare jewel indeed. They make you smile and encourage you to succeed. They lend an ear. They share your dreams. They share a word of praise, and they always want to open their hearts to you. Show your friends how much you care about them by them. Be willing to say, “I love you”, lift instead of lean and listen instead of talk. After all, the relationships you develop are the most precious possession you will ever have.
About the author
Dr. Dallas Humble is a healthcare provider, business owner, professional consultant, author and founder of The Reshape Institute. Dr. Humble consults with individuals and organizations across the country to improve productivity, identify & mitigate injuries and promote wellness. For more information visit www.dallashumble.com.
