A Perspective on Goal Setting

To accomplish great things in your life, you must first understand yourself and some basic principles as to how one gets into the position to be successful, regardless of pursuit. The following represents a model in statement form that, in a rather simplistic manner, provides a framework for the establishment of goals.

High self-esteem leads to … High productivity leads to … … Event control leads back to … High self-esteem ..

From this model you can see that if you take from one of these areas, you’ll take from the others as a consequence. Let’s proceed with examining some of the definitions that might be operationally appropriate for this particular model in achieving success, again regardless of the endeavor.

1. GOAL SETTING: Goal-a goal is a planned-for event ………………………………..when a goal is valued, it becomes a priority. If goals are valued together, prioritizing takes place as a matter of procedure. Prioritization, by definition, is the determination of the sequence of events.

2. PLANNING: Planning is the pre-determination of a course of events. There needs to be a commitment daily to take ten to fifteen minutes of your time early (prior to telephone or scheduled appointment time when you can see people during normal hours) to plan your day. The latter may also be accomplished and should be somewhat reviewed on a weekly or monthly basis, consistent with your monthly planner and goals as determined during the evaluation process. Evaluate the plan on a daily basis and carryover those things that have been prioritized but not accomplished. If something is a high priority or needs to get done on that day, it is important that you stay until the task or tasks are accomplished. Once you make a decision to do something, you exclude other things by the process of elimination. We all get a “check” for 24 hours a day. Note: As soon as we say to someone or some thing that, “I don’t have time,” what it really means is that you value something else more. It’s important to understand this when dealing with the public that we serve, and particularly the business or corporate community.

3. PUTTING YOUR PRIORITIES IN ORDER: Make a list of everything you want to accomplish, first on a weekly basis and then for that particular day. Place a value on each of the items on the list. For example,

A = Vital (has to be done)

B = Important (should be done)

C = Relatively trivial (can be carried over to the next day)

Urgencies act on priorities-they are not priorities. Allow the opportunity to be interrupted on a daily basis for a certain segment of your time. It’s very important to be responsive to the clientele who walk in or on the telephone on a regular basis. This even means calls at night, and with this sample response, “I’m sorry I wasn’t available earlier today, but I know your time is important as well, and that’s why I’m calling you back at this point.” What you are telling that person is that they are in fact important and that you are accessible, which is important to one of our primary principles in greeting people, in that we want everyone to feel that “we’ve been waiting for them all of our lives.”

Note: Something may have a value, but without urgency is it still important? The average father spends seven minutes a week with his children, one on one.

Goals are determined by two things: Those items that we have to accomplish and those items we want to accomplish.

It’s important that the goals in your life be prioritized and revisited on a regular basis. I keep ten goals in a private place for both my personal and professional lives and I re-assess those on an annual basis.

It’s very important that you don’t make the goals too easy to attain.

Perhaps one of the greatest sins in our society is that some people who say that they establish goals make them too easy and end up becoming satisfied with far less than they are capable of accomplishing. In that way we’re committing an unpardonable sin, in that we are not achieving at the level of our God-given capabilities.

It’s for that reason that I’ve accomplished very few goals in my life! As soon as I get relatively close, I raise the expectation.

Example: Goals are often a product of your values or what you value and consequently prioritize in your life. If I gave you $100,000 to cross an I-beam between two tall buildings, which we’ll say for the sake of the example is about 200 feet above the ground, would you do it? If I gave you $1 million in cash, would you cross the I-beam? The value is increasing, but like a lot of things, God is forgiving but nature wouldn’t be if you fell. Now, if there was a baby in the middle of the I-beam between the two buildings, would you then cross it to save the baby? You probably would.

You have to be willing to pay the price to achieve productivity and it comes in various forms. It sometimes requires that you leave a comfort zone. In this case, you’d be leaving a comfort zone, but priorities are directly proportionate to what you value.

When one’s daily activity is in concert with your highest priorities, you probably have a legitimate claim to inner peace. Of course, if you don’t have goals, you certainly don’t have priorities for the most part, either. That allows you to stay within that comfort zone because you’ll never fail.

o Failure is a product of risk-taking, which is a product inherent with every successful person in our society. Every great success is destined to fail many times over. The latter is very important from our perspective because of the fact that we have to model this kind of behavior because of what we stand for at the NMAA and, in fact, in perpetuating the American system of achievement.

PRIORITIES IN MY LIFE

1. Spiritual/God

2. Family

3. Being better tomorrow than I am today, personally and professionally

4. My professional life

VALUES

What would it take for me to cross the I-beam? What do I value the most?

Each of these are questions important to the paradigm for establishing goals, as it shapes how you approach your daily life. Values that I hold dear to, both personally and professionally, are credibility, ambition, learning every day, loyalty, integrity, as well as other solid character traits.

Because of the fact that we change our values throughout our lives, it’s important to re-assess this area on a regular basis. Example: Geriatric crime has tripled over the last five years for a lot of different reasons. The one most significant reason is that, according to the research, we value senior citizens less in terms of their contribution to society and, for economic, social or self-esteem reasons, that population does not place as high a value on pride, integrity or appearance that they once did.

GOVERNING VALUES

Stress is often a by-product of high expectations. The ability to handle stress is, for the most part, a learned behavior and is a derivative of positive time management, goal orientation, task accomplishment and one’s ability to produce. It’s also possible to be a carrier of stress, but not have the disease itself.