What Is the Right Goal?
Books, videos and public speakers evangelize the importance of goal setting. This article is not about the importance of setting and achieving goals. From a SELF-CARE standpoint, goal setting and goal achievement are meaningless practices if you don’t take into account your priorities of actual needs and with a view to the reality of your character. The satisfaction of achieving goal can only be evaluated as insufficient, sufficient, efficient, or super efficient (exceeding expectations), reflecting after the fact. Our time on earth, resources and opportunities are finite, so you must consider how you set goals with SELF-CARE because you cannot recover time.
Where SELF-CARE becomes significant is in the context of the relationship you have with yourself. When you face your personal limitations, hangups, unfulfilled expectations and other challenges, goal setting becomes a natural extension of your process to grow. The motivation to pursue goals should have a genuine thrust, grounded in the realization that until you stretch yourself, there is no real connection to your desired higher self.
To start with, take the SELF-CARE assessment and identify the short term goals that address the most significant challenges that you carry with you today. By taking action, you uplift your self-esteem, elevate your emotional state and upon successful resolution, raise your potential for achieving greater goals and objectives.
How to Do Goal Setting
Goals based on a conscious choice to follow a personalized vision are very different from goals based on ego, competitive attitudes or arbitrary measures of success. How does one establish a vision for their lives in the first place? From a directional point of view, its a matter of how you choose to apply your talents and skills toward an opportunity. SELF-CARE measures of success are based on the idea of doing your best at every opportunity, seeing life as a whole as one large opportunity. By practicing the SELF-CARE assessment with a sobering view of the 5 truths that most people experience upon reflecting on their lives, the kind of goals and priorities that are meaningful and congruent with your life will become clear.
Goals can take many forms. As part of the daily practice of time management its important to visualize what it means to perform your work in a way where you expect nothing short of excellence in your practice. With this visualization, set goals as ways to measure the quality of the work and continue to challenge yourself with higher expectations. Goals can thus be a way of personal development through practice. Finally, be mindful of the overarching reason for your motivation. Your “Why” should be apparent in everything you do.
The Crucial Understanding
In the past, pursuing aggressive goals meant that I was making progress. Though I achieved my goals in terms of career, relationships and monetary gains, I found no lasting fulfillment. Success measured in these terms was just a matter of external validation and coping with personal dissatisfaction. At some point, the inability to experience fulfillment leaves you feeling empty and wondering why. Gaining the perspective from daily practice of SELF-CARE taught me to build my relationship to myself as a priority. Goals followed discipline and served as a barometer for gauging the method of thinking and practice. This shift made my daily work far more satisfying and personal development a practical system. I encourage you to consider goal setting from this point of view.