Finding Success by Setting Goals and Living with Intention:
Have you ever gotten to the end of your day and wondered what exactly you accomplished or felt as if you completely wasted your entire day? Maybe you’ve felt that way day after day for a while, not really understanding why your days aren’t as fulfilling as you wish they were. We’ve all been there at some point, but why?
Way too often we get stuck in a rut or we get caught up in merely surviving the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, and we fail to live life with intention. We go through our days without any conscious purpose, without any understanding of what we truly want or without a clear path to get there. If you were going on a road trip to some place you’ve never been, would you just jump in the car with no map or GPS and just hope you got there? Hell, no. That seems ridiculous, doesn’t it? But we do that exact thing in our lives every day. So, how do we get off the road to nowhere so that we might get to our desired destination? First, we set goals. We sit down and get real honest with ourselves and decide what it is we want. Then, we live each day with clear intentions designed to move us toward the desired outcome.
Setting Goals:
When I was in middle school, I had a teacher who asked me and my classmates to set goals for the school year. “Think about what kind of grades you want, what you want this school year to be like, where you might improve,” she prompted. Like a good student, I pondered the task seriously and wrote down the three things that seemed most important. My teacher then collected our goal setting sheets and tucked them away somewhere in the abyss of her desk. At the end of the school year, she passed those sheets back to us and asked if we had achieved the goals we had set at the beginning of the year. I read over the paper, which I had not seen in months, and quite honestly, I had only accomplished one of the three. It was a basic goal – to get straight A’s. Since I was an extremely conscientious student by nature, achieving that goal required no great thought on my part. I was a rule follower, and I worked hard in school all the time. The other two goals, however, were a little more out of my comfort zone, and quite frankly, I hadn’t thought about either goal since the day the teacher had collected my paper at the beginning of the year. The point here is, how do we expect to get to where we want to be if we never contemplate how we are going to get there? Simply saying you want something isn’t enough. In order to reach a goal, in order to succeed, we must regularly reflect upon the goal and be intentional in our actions. This is true in our personal and our professional lives.
Setting goals is essential to success in all aspects of life. It is in the act of goal setting that we take the time to contemplate where we are, where we want to be, and how we can get there. Without this conscious action, we tend to flounder about without any direction.
When setting goals:
1. Be honest about where you are.
2. Contemplate what is most important to you.
3. Create goals for various aspects of your life. For example, I like to focus on three goal categories at a time: 1) Relationships (friends, family, partner); 2) Personal Health (mind, body, and spirit); and 3) Career.
4. Keep the goal manageable. There’s no point in setting a goal that is not attainable. Doing so will only cause you to become discouraged.
5. Clearly state your goals. Write them down. Put them in the notes on your phone. Have those goals readily available for review.
6. Break the goal down into steps or daily intentions - we’ll talk more about intentions in a moment.
7. Regularly evaluate your progress toward the goal. Be honest with yourself. Are you truly working to get where you say you want to be? If not, evaluate if the goal is really something you want.
Living with Intention in order to achieve:
What is an intention? An intention is a guiding principle that influences our actions and reactions so that we might live life moving in a positive direction along a path that will allow us to achieve our goals. Intentions are not the same as goals. Goals are a longer term prospect that we must consistently evaluate to determine our progress toward achievement. An intention is an attitude or an aim that motivates or inspires daily actions.
Setting Intention:
1. First ask yourself where you are in this moment in relationship to where you want to be.
2. Create a positive mantra that is a reminder of the purpose by which your actions are to be guided.
3. Write the mantra down. Post it where you will see it and read it daily.
4. Verbalize your intention (mantra). Speak it into existence.
5. Be consistent in working toward that intention. Create daily habits that make it possible to do so.
6. Meditate and reflect upon the intention daily. Without reflection, how can we know if we are doing what we set out to do?
7. In all things, practice gratitude.
Examples of Intention Mantras:
· To maintain a perspective of positivity in all situations
· To step beyond my comfort zone
· To recognize my talents and to be grateful for them
· To forgive myself and others
· To learn something new every day
· To thoughtfully respond to others instead of reacting
I’m sure you get the idea. Just remember, when setting your intention, you want that daily aim to be moving you toward your overall goal. If your goal is to have a more positive relationship with a family member, your daily intention may be something like “to thoughtfully respond to others instead of reacting.”
Don’t let another day pass in which you are left feeling directionless or unfulfilled. Take the time to seriously contemplate what you want out of life and consciously set intentions for your day so that you might get there. I have a dear friend who owns a yoga studio in my hometown. In class, she regularly reminds us students that there is no dress rehearsal for life. We get one shot, so what are we going to do with it? Are we go to flounder about day after day wishing life were different or are we going to consciously and intentionally seek the life we want? Personally, I choose the latter.