My goal is to build a life, I don't need a vacation from.
— Rob Hill
I
didn't realize how important goals were to my progress until by accident I began to look back on the benchmarks that I had set myself in the past. Don't get me wrong I've always set goals, though I never fully appreciated how powerful they were. I think I got the habits from my parents in its raw form. My mom in particular even though she couldn't read herself, she always wanted me to write things down from the grocery list to how much we owed the butcher. Dad was a note taker. He
was always writing and drawing little doodles beside his thoughts. I developed an appreciation for that, and as soon as I was introduced to personal development through Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich, I began constructing rudimentary goals myself. At first, they were ugly things in form and function, the content reflected a young man trying to find his way in the world. I graduated from bits of paper to notebooks. My process
changed over the years, too. I'm a very visual person and in the beginning I was just writing down my aspirations as words but I discovered mind-mapping and my goals began to look differently and feel more organic. It started to have real significance to me. Even in the years where I was frustrated at how I developed as a person or the times of my spectacular financial failures I stayed the course. I refused to give it up.
If I was able to gather all of the goals I have
ever written down it would plot a graph of how I developed as an individual. I wasn't particularly good at setting my goals either. The experts in the area of human potential talk about SMART goals. - Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely. I didn't know a shit about that but that did not stop me. I may not have had the entire picture but the pieces of the puzzle that I
did have allowed me to achieve some of the things I set out to achieve. What if I hadn't? What path would I be on now?
About ten years ago I started using large year planners that I would place near my workstation. I keep my goals in a large black binder filled with images, dates and lists in four different areas of my life. I should read them everyday - I don't, but I'm getting closer to achieving that goal too. I then write on my year planner when I intend to achieve these goals. It
contains the big yearly goals and the small daily goals if I can fit them into what soon becomes a visually busy roadmap for the year. Each end of a year I would take down the old planner store it away and mount the new planner. A year or so ago, I was looking for a book that I needed for some research. I came across the year planners, all dusty and stacked together and I started to looking through them. I had to sit down because it was so overwhelming. I had come so far and I hadn't truly
recognised it. Things I am taking for granted now, five years ago I had set as a goal on my year planner. I am living so many of these events in my life at the moment, that it feels as if these achievements have been sneaking into my existence, enhancing my life without fanfare and recognition. And that is the power of goals and consistent action.
Miracles happen
Don't be fooled by its simplicity. Set those goals, take action, follow through and never give
up.
