In the next few postings we will be looking at goals in our journey towards achieving success in life and business.
The ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the master skill of success. Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. A person without goals is like a ship sailing without rudder and so is drifting aimlessly without direction exposing itself to danger of ending up on rocks. When you have goals, you are like a ship with a rudder, guided by a captain with a map, a compass, and a destination and therefore you can sail straight and true towards a port of your choosing.
Brian Tracy came to a conclusion that “Success is goals and all else is commentary.” So if you want to copy what the intensely successful people do, you need to be goal oriented. You will need to know what you want and get focused on achieving it every single day.
As a human being, you are a goal-centred organism. We are engineered mentally to move progressively and successively from one goal to the next, and we are never really happy unless, and until, we are moving toward the accomplishment of something important to us. Also, our brains have this goal-seeking function that guides us in actually seeking out our desires and looking for means to accomplishing them.
Because of this function, we almost always achieve any goals we set for ourselves. Once you are absolutely clear about your goal, you do not even have to know where it is or how to achieve it. By simply deciding exactly what you want, you will begin to move towards your goal and your goal begins to move towards you. Can remember that sometimes when you decide on something you want to do, somehow and somehow, things just fall in place for the accomplishment of that desire. This is what happens when you set goals for yourself.
What I want to you to understand is that you can achieve whatever goals you set because you are created in such a way to achieve them. So get started in goal setting.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
Situational Assessment
As I said earlier in my last post, to be truly successful in life, you need to determine where you are coming from, who you want to be, the means through which you will get there and then begin to take those actions that would guarantee success.
In determining these, you will need to sit down and do a situational assessment of your life. So let us proceed to examine the aforementioned issues.
Where you are coming from
There is a popular saying that if you do not know where you are coming from how will you know where you are going to. So you need to assess where you are coming from. In life, you must have a starting point. Your starting point is who you are right now, where you are right now and what you have right now.
Your past also matters but you will agree with me that your past contributed to your present situation. So when I refer to your starting point as your present state your past is already included in it.
You will need to do a complete analysis of your current situation. You will consider your strength, your weaknesses, opportunities available to you and the threats you face. This analysis is actually known as SWOT. You will need to do this exercise in every area of your life; your work/business, your skills, your relationship, your finances, your spirituality and so on. An important analysis that will complete the exercise is to find out how you got to where you are right now. You must look at your successes and failures as this will help you in determining how to get to the future.
At the conclusion of this exercise, you will be in a position to truly determine who you are and where you are coming from and whether you are ready to take any action that would guarantee you success. However, I wish to say that no matter your realization after this exercise, you need to take positive action towards achieving your goals of becoming successful.
Who you want to be
Without knowing where you are coming from or who you presently are, you wouldn’t know who you want to be or where you want to go. As George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Knowing who you are at the moment is important as it would enable you have a clearer idea of who you eventually want to be. You would also begin to know the things you need to change in your life so as to become who you want to be and also the things you need to add on. If you do not know yourself well enough, you won’t be able to clearly see who you want to be. Who you want to be should be all encompassing covering your emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual life.
So the current state analysis which you carried out is a very necessary exercise in your road to success.
What do you want to be in the future? What are your dreams and desires for your life? How will you want your life to look like in 2, 5, 10 and many years to come? What picture do you have of your family, your finances, your work/business, your spirituality, your position in the society etc? Create a perfect vision of what you will look like if you were successful in every respect.
This aspect of situational analysis helps you to picture your future and see what you will be like then. If you seriously do this aspect there is a kind of feeling you get- a feeling of hope and possibility.
Now the next thing to do is to determine what you need to do to achieve this picture you have about your future.
How to get there
You have already looked at your past, analysed your current status and pictured your future. The next step is to find out how to get from where you are now to that beautiful future you dreamed of.
You should ask yourself very pressing questions. What do you do now, to get from where you are to where you want to be? Based on your experience, what should you be doing more of or less of? What should you start doing that you are not doing today? What should you stop doing altogether? What behaviour should you stop doing and what behaviour should you imbibe? What are the things in your life that you should change? What influence you positively that you must do more of? Etc.
By the time you have asked yourself these questions and more, you will then draw a step-by-step plan on how to get yourself to that future you have created in advance in your mind.
Goodnews
If you can ask and answer all these questions accurately, the strategic plan or blueprint comes together more easily than if we were trying to plan without being clear about where we were or how we go there.
Taking the time to honestly evaluate each part of your situation before you launch towards your goal will save you months and even years on your journey.
Let me assure you that whatever picture you have of your future is achievable. Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Do I need to say a word more? Ok, consider the achievement of Barack Obama.
We will be discussing goals in the next post. Do keep a date with us.
Written by Gabriel Gambo Nmadu.
You are free to use this article and others on this blog on your website, blog or forum once you include the resource box below:
Gabriel Gambo Nmadu is committed to helping you achieve success in your life and business. You can mail him on gabu4u1@gmail.com for advice or help in your your business, relationship or life generally.
In determining these, you will need to sit down and do a situational assessment of your life. So let us proceed to examine the aforementioned issues.
Where you are coming from
There is a popular saying that if you do not know where you are coming from how will you know where you are going to. So you need to assess where you are coming from. In life, you must have a starting point. Your starting point is who you are right now, where you are right now and what you have right now.
Your past also matters but you will agree with me that your past contributed to your present situation. So when I refer to your starting point as your present state your past is already included in it.
You will need to do a complete analysis of your current situation. You will consider your strength, your weaknesses, opportunities available to you and the threats you face. This analysis is actually known as SWOT. You will need to do this exercise in every area of your life; your work/business, your skills, your relationship, your finances, your spirituality and so on. An important analysis that will complete the exercise is to find out how you got to where you are right now. You must look at your successes and failures as this will help you in determining how to get to the future.
At the conclusion of this exercise, you will be in a position to truly determine who you are and where you are coming from and whether you are ready to take any action that would guarantee you success. However, I wish to say that no matter your realization after this exercise, you need to take positive action towards achieving your goals of becoming successful.
Who you want to be
Without knowing where you are coming from or who you presently are, you wouldn’t know who you want to be or where you want to go. As George Santayana wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Knowing who you are at the moment is important as it would enable you have a clearer idea of who you eventually want to be. You would also begin to know the things you need to change in your life so as to become who you want to be and also the things you need to add on. If you do not know yourself well enough, you won’t be able to clearly see who you want to be. Who you want to be should be all encompassing covering your emotional, spiritual, physical and intellectual life.
So the current state analysis which you carried out is a very necessary exercise in your road to success.
What do you want to be in the future? What are your dreams and desires for your life? How will you want your life to look like in 2, 5, 10 and many years to come? What picture do you have of your family, your finances, your work/business, your spirituality, your position in the society etc? Create a perfect vision of what you will look like if you were successful in every respect.
This aspect of situational analysis helps you to picture your future and see what you will be like then. If you seriously do this aspect there is a kind of feeling you get- a feeling of hope and possibility.
Now the next thing to do is to determine what you need to do to achieve this picture you have about your future.
How to get there
You have already looked at your past, analysed your current status and pictured your future. The next step is to find out how to get from where you are now to that beautiful future you dreamed of.
You should ask yourself very pressing questions. What do you do now, to get from where you are to where you want to be? Based on your experience, what should you be doing more of or less of? What should you start doing that you are not doing today? What should you stop doing altogether? What behaviour should you stop doing and what behaviour should you imbibe? What are the things in your life that you should change? What influence you positively that you must do more of? Etc.
By the time you have asked yourself these questions and more, you will then draw a step-by-step plan on how to get yourself to that future you have created in advance in your mind.
Goodnews
If you can ask and answer all these questions accurately, the strategic plan or blueprint comes together more easily than if we were trying to plan without being clear about where we were or how we go there.
Taking the time to honestly evaluate each part of your situation before you launch towards your goal will save you months and even years on your journey.
Let me assure you that whatever picture you have of your future is achievable. Napoleon Hill said, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Do I need to say a word more? Ok, consider the achievement of Barack Obama.
We will be discussing goals in the next post. Do keep a date with us.
Written by Gabriel Gambo Nmadu.
You are free to use this article and others on this blog on your website, blog or forum once you include the resource box below:
Gabriel Gambo Nmadu is committed to helping you achieve success in your life and business. You can mail him on gabu4u1@gmail.com for advice or help in your your business, relationship or life generally.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
What is Success?
Different people have their defination of this word- Success. To some extent it may be subjective. However, whatever your take on the matter, it must have a positive connotation to be widely accepted.
Success to me mean achieving that goal which you have already set for yourself. It may range from a myriad of subjects but based on the fact that you have achieve that set goal, you can say you are succesful.
Many may limit success to money. Wealth is viewed, by them, as the only sign of success. While achieving your financial goal is a success on its own it is not the only sign to distinguish success. Many have attained wealth but are not in good health or do they have good relationship with their spouse or relatives.
It is important that we view success in its composite terms.
The following may be identified as the ingredients of success:
Success to me mean achieving that goal which you have already set for yourself. It may range from a myriad of subjects but based on the fact that you have achieve that set goal, you can say you are succesful.
Many may limit success to money. Wealth is viewed, by them, as the only sign of success. While achieving your financial goal is a success on its own it is not the only sign to distinguish success. Many have attained wealth but are not in good health or do they have good relationship with their spouse or relatives.
It is important that we view success in its composite terms.
The following may be identified as the ingredients of success:
- Peace of Mind
- Health and Energy
- Loving Relationship
- Financia Freedom
- Worthy Goals and Ideals
- Self-Knowledge and Self Awareness
- Personal Fulfilment
These composite ingredients should be viewed as a whole in determining Total Success.
Be that as it may, I want to state here that success is a journey and not a destination. As such we are, everyday, striving to add to our success progressively.
To be truly successful in life, you need to determine where you are coming from, who you want to be, the means through which you will get there and then begin to take those actions that would guarantee success.
We will look at the last paragraph in detail in subsequent postings.
I am committed to your success.
Written by Gabriel Gambo Nmadu.
You are free to use this article and others on this blog on your website, blog or forum once you include the resource box below:
Gabriel Gambo Nmadu is committed to helping you achieve success in your life and business. You can mail him on gabu4u1@gmail.com for advice or help in your your business, reltionship or life generally.
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