Goal Achieving: Discovering Your Passion

Goal Achieving:  Discovering Your Passion

It is much easier to continuing working toward your goal, even in the face of obstacles, if your goal is one of your passions.  But how do you know your passions?

Method 1:  What you talk about.

For a week or two, keep track of what you talk about with your friends and what you do with your free time.  Do not include conversations of activities in which you have little or no control, such as activities at work or conversations dictated by your school.  At the end of the time, review your lists and rank activities and conversations for frequency.  Those items that have scored the highest are probably passions.

Method 2:  Your 100^th birthday speech.

Pretend you are now 100 years old.  Give a speech to your friends and neighbors about what you learned in life and what events or activities have given you the greatest pride.  Those events or activities are probably passions.

Method 3:  Your eulogy.

Pretend you have just passed away and you are listening to your best friends giving your eulogy.  What do you want them to say?  It may be something that you have not yet accomplished but want to be remembered for having done.  That what you wish to be remembered for is probably a passion.

Method 4:  Your epitaph.

Pretend you have passed away.  What do you want on your headstone as your epitaph?  This one is “get to the point with a few words.”  What you want to be remembered for with your epitaph is probably a passion.

It may be necessary to change the method used after you start, and it may be necessary to work on one method for several days or weeks.  Keep at it until you are satisfied that you are honest and complete in your answer.

Which ever method or methods you use, you now have an idea of what is important to you and have an idea of your passion or several of them.  Write a S.M.A.R.T. objective to support each passion.

If your passion is to be a good family man, your objective may be a process objective such as, “Spend 20 minutes with each child each day.”  An outcome objective may be, “Ensure son Jim reaches his objective of achieving the Eagle Scout award.”

If your passion is to own a large house on 160 acres, your objective may be, “By December, 2012, I will own a 4000 square foot or larger house on 160 acres.”  A subordinate goal may be, “By January 31, 2010, I will have a plan in place to achieve the house goal.”

Knowing what is important to you (your passion) and building your goals and objectives to support that passion will go a long way in achieving your goals.

Good luck in 2010 and beyond.

S.M.A.R.T. Goalsl

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

To be successful, your goals must be S.M.A.R.T.

Specific.  Exactly what do you want and what are you willing to give to get it.  For instance a goal of, “More Respect,” is not specific.  It could mean more respect from wealthy people, educated people, or bullies.  The means of attaining that respect would be quite different.  A more specific goal would be, “The X society of my town will invite me to speak at their luncheon.”

Measurable.  You, I and anyone else should be able to tell when you have met your goal.  “My goal is a more comfortable lifestyle,” is not measurable.  “My goal is to have $2,000,000 net worth” is measurable.  “My goal is to have a home that has 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, is 3400 square feet and is on five acres of land,” is measurable.

Ambitious. Your goals must be big, must be significant.  Small, easy goals will not excite you and therefore you will lose interest in them.  Set ambitious goals – something that excites you – so you jump out of bed each morning with a desire to work on your goal.

Realistic. “My goal is to drive in the Indianapolis 500 race,” is not realistic.  Even A. J. Foyt, who drove in the race during four decades quit when he was younger than I am now.  I have not been willing, nor am I willing now, to expend the time, money and effort to achieve that goal.  Setting it would only lead to frustration and another missed goal.  “My goal is to win the regional enduro go-kart race,” is much more realistic.  “I will bench press double my weight,” may be realistic for some of us, but not for a quadriplegic.  Our goal must be relevant to our desires and capabilities.

Time limited. The goal must have a time limit.  If we say, “in the future,” the realization of that goal will always be in the future.  There is a saying that perhaps is humorous, “If it were not for the last minute, nothing would get done.”  Set a deadline for reaching the goal, then keep that deadline in mind to give a sense of urgency.

Of course, our goals must support our dreams and desires and must be supported by our core values as stated in a previous blog.

Business and Personal Development: Setting Goals

To achieve your goals you must first set the proper goals.  If you have set goals or objectives in the past, only to have them slip away unachieved, please continue reading this.

Of course our goals must be S.M.A.R.T. for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.  This is the subject of a future blog.

Discover Your Passion

To start, you must identify your passion.  This is what you:

• talk about when you have the opportunity,

• read about or study on your own or

• do on your free time.

To discover your passion, for about two weeks record the subject of your conversations, books or magazines read and activities.   Do not record conversations, reading and activities in which you engage because you must such as school assignments, employment or legal requirements.  At the end of the two weeks, you should have a good idea of how you spend your discretionary time and efforts.

Some people have many passions and bounce from project to project.  If this describes you, choose one or two passions that have a high importance to you for the coming year and work with them.

Set Your Goals

With your passion discovered, write goals to support that passion.  For instance, if your passion is to work with disadvantaged people, your goal may be to get a degree in social work or to volunteer at the homeless shelter.  If you passion is travel, your goal may be to visit three new countries in the coming year or to visit all 50 states.  If your passion is flying, your goal may be to get a pilot’s license or to purchase an airplane.  If your passion is earning money your goal may be to make your current annual income a monthly income.

Discover Your Governing Values

Make a list of your governing values.  These would be things like Truth, Freedom, Family, Spirituality, Health, Wealth, Obedience.  Prioritize the list by comparing the first two items and moving the higher priority to be above the other item.  Then do this for the next two.  Keep doing this, going through the list several times until all the items are in proper order.  As an example if the first two items on your list are truth and freedom, you may ask, “Would I lie to keep from going to jail?”  If “Yes,” then freedom is a higher priority, if “No,” then truth is a higher priority.

Apply Your Governing Values

Now compare your goals to your governing values.  Where there is a conflict, the goal will lose.  If necessary, adjust your goal to eliminate the conflict.  An example would be that if your goals require that you work 80 hours per week and a high priority value is family, you will need to adjust your goal or get your family’s acceptance of that goal for you.

Keep the three lists (passions, goals, governing values) together where you can see them daily or more frequently.  Your goals are where you are going because of your passion, but controlled by your governing values.

Develop Your Action Plan

Many of the example goals and the goals you may choose will require sub-goals.  For example, to make your annual income your monthly income may require sub-goals of: 1) research alternative methods of getting income and select the best one or two for me, 2) get the education or training necessary to become successful in my new endeavors, 3) create a business plan and 4) execute the business plan.  As you write each of your sub-goals, be sure to make them    S.M.A.R.T. goals

For each of your goals or sub-goals create an action plan that will take you from where you are to where you need to be, including milestone checkpoints to track your progress and adjust your action plan as necessary.

Goal achieving is the subject of a future blog.

Good Luck on setting ACHIEVABLE goals.