This is the text to the live video originally broadcast on January 1, 2018 on the topic “New year Resolutions: Setting Goals And Achieving Them”.
Good morning everybody, and I wish you a happy new year. My name is Eberechukwu Enyinna. I’m a medical doctor and I also work with ReDahlia.
It is such a blessing to be in a new year and have that feeling of a fresh start, to be able to start doing things right. In fact, people all over the world go ahead to make new year resolutions – basically goals and targets they’d like to hit by the time it is December 31, 11:59:59 PM.
Of course, we don’t have to wait till January 1 of a new year before we start making resolutions or keeping them. What I always tell people is that as soon as possible, it is good to start making their resolutions – even as late as December 20 of a previous year. This means that you can actually start implementing those resolutions.
But then if you are like millions of other people who like to start on January 1 (for me I don’t like rigid set dates as I’ll tend to keep pushing the goal start date till I totally forget I even had a goal at all) then that’s all well and good. Whatever your choice of start date, there are basic rules and principles your goals and resolutions should comply to.
One of the most important things to note is that proficiency at setting and implementing goals has to do with practice.
The rules for setting goals and making resolutions:
Write down your goal or resolution
This is because there is the danger of getting busy with daily routines and forgetting there was a goal set in the first place.
Make sure to be clear and specific
This means that your goal is easily understandable. For example, learn a new language, be a better singer, stop procrastination, or be a better company executive.
On the other hand, say your goal is to have a better quality of life. While grammatically, this is easily understood, it is not very clear when you get down to it. This is because a better quality of life consists of many things – health, job, interpersonal relations, stopping procrastination, etc. You will need to identify what component exactly to change and narrow down goal to the improvement of this component.
Make sure your goal is attainable
You have to make sure your goal is realistic and achievable. If you set out to improve your interpersonal skills by July 2018, this is achievable. But if you set out to get to space or the moon by July 2018, this is very unrealistic. Unless you win a ticket from NASA and fly to the moon in one of their rockets. But then you were just lucky there happened to have been a competition from which you won a ticket. You didn’t plan nor strive so much for it.
Ensure the goal is relevant
Ask yourself if this is something you really need in life, put into consideration your relationship or marriage or family, ask yourself which people are going to be affected by these goals and if they are something you really need to improve your life or they are just an academic exercise. Otherwise time will be wasted pursuing goals and targets while neglecting the important people around you.
Break the written-down goal into implementable bits and pieces
Look at the overall goal and identify its components (sub-goals) and try to hit them. For example, if you’d like to become a better company executive by the end of 2019. This is a realistic, attainable, relevant, clear and specific goal.
Next is to break it down into sub-goals. For example, if there are professional courses you need to take; if there are leadership simulation exercises, relevant workshops or seminars that you would need to take to improve your professional life. Identify these and put them down as sub-goals that need to be reached.
Then identify if there is an article you need to subscribe to and read to improve your knowledge in your field. This will also be a sub-goal. Any character flaws need to be identified also (for example, being easily irritated or a having a tendency to micromanage people) and set it up as a sub-goal to get rid of. Achieving these sub-goals achieves the greater goal of becoming a better company executive by the end of 2018.
Time-stamp your goal
Allocate a time period within which the goal is to be achieved. Becoming a better company executive by the end of 2018 has a time stamp – end of 2018. This goal has sub-goals, and they too get time stamps.
The danger in not time-stamping your goal is that you can be 25 years old and put out a goal that should normally take 2 years to achieve but wake up one day to discover you are 60 and haven’t still started implementing steps to achieving your goal.
Surround yourself with people who will help you
It is important to get yourself into an environment with people you would like to become like. People who are doing what you are doing and understand what you are all about and achieve. Be careful about family and friends who don’t understand what you are about. They discourage you with your best interests at heart. They try to protect you out of concern really.
Be careful when talking to them about your goals and careful about what feedbacks you receive from them. If you would like to become a great artist, go away from traders so you don’t abandon your craft and start buying and selling. (Vice versa.) It is always best to surround yourself with people who know what you are about to learn the skills and keep up with the industry.
Have an open mind
Have an open mind to understand that your energies have to be focused on the singular mission of achieving your goals. But you also have to understand that there would be a need to tweak and change bits and pieces in order to get better results. Have the open mind to have conversations with yourself to be able to make changes and adjustments where needed.
Reward yourself
When you achieve a goal, the feeling of accomplishment is mind-blowing. This feeling needs to be reinforced by rewarding yourself. Go have a good meal and drink in a restaurant, alone or with family and friends, and appreciate them also if they have been instrumental in your goal attainment. Buy yourself a shirt, a pair of jeans or even splurge on a car. These reinforce in you that goals are a beautiful thing to pursue, that they are things to attain and that there is a reward at the end of it.
Don’t take on too much
Be careful not to take upon yourself so many goals at once. It is confusing when this is done and a burnout might occur. You will be trying to hit so many targets that many of them and their processes will overlap and work against the attainment of all of them.
This was live from Romania.
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