businessgyan - A New Year - A New Purpose.

Jan 15 2004

A New Year - A New Purpose.

Written by Ian Faria

Thursday, 15 January 2004

The soul that has no established aim loses itself – Michael de Montaigne.

The new year is upon us again, and as you read this special issue of Best Practices, I am sure that you will be motivated to implement some of these ideas in your business or profession. Every new year we make resolutions with loads of determination, but for the vast majority of us, this turns out to be a task that is destined to fail – or that’s what our track record seems to indicate. How then should one work on improving ourselves?

Great minds have puroses, others have wishes. – Washington Irving.

I have found through the personal coaching for success programmes that I conduct, that people who succeed possess a well balanced life – one in which professional goals are balanced with personal and family goals. If this is not done, only one area of your life is addressed, and in the long term, it will result in deterioration as the relationship part of your life will fall apart, and this will in turn affect your professional life. Eventually nothing significant will remain. What is the way out of this?

The true worth of a man is to be measured by the objects he pursues. Marcus Aurelius.

First, we need to understand that we are emotional entities and are hence controlled in a major way by how our emotions affect us. Daniel Goleman has made the world aware of the importance of EQ over IQ, and this has rightfully been the benchmark for selecting candidates for jobs (even the most technical ones). So goal setting for your professional improvement without addressing personal goals is like wearing a great jacket without wearing a pant and shirt underneath. You would look under dressed.

The first thing to do is to set goals for yourself in your three major areas – Professional, Personal and Family/friends. Professional Goals would include professional certificate programmes, technical training, re-positioning and re-branding etc.

Personal Goals would consist of learning public speaking or inter-personal communication, learning a foreign language, going for aerobic or dance classes etc.

Family Goals would be what you could do to improve your relationships with your brothers, sisters, parents, children and even your friends, or how you could help them.

After you have established these general goals, you will need to figure out which ones need to be prioritized, and how soon you would like to achieve each goal.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. Friedrich Nietzche.

Given below is a six point plan that will energize you goal setting, and ensure that you reach success.

What do you definitely want to achieve in the next 5 years? List out all these targets without wondering about how you will be able to achieve them.
From the list circle the objectives that you have to complete within this year, and make a new list of objectives – with dates for achieving each objective.
What will be the stumbling blocks that you might encounter, and how will you overcome these? Write these solutions out next to each of the objectives.
Break up the targets into monthly goals, and then weekly goals, and finally into 5 or 6 daily goals for each week, and enter these in your diary on the appropriate dates.
Take Action on each goal, according to the dates you have scheduled, and monitor how you are progressing.
Monitor and make necessary changes to the objectives as you go along, depending on how well you are progressing.

Every time you achieve a daily goal, tick it off in your diary and feel good about achieving a part of your goal. This will in turn reinforce your abilities to head for the top. Achieving success will slowly but surely become a habit.

So isn’t it now easy? All you have to do is to follow the above plan, and remember the words of Col. Michael Friedman who said: Concentrate on finding your goal, then concentrate on reaching it.

Ian Faria.

The author is a corporate trainer, businessman, and motivational speaker, and consultant who specializes in transforming individuals through mind engineering.

Issue BG33-34 Jan04