Why?

Goals put you in the driver's seat. They keep you focused and motivate you to stay on the road.  The size of the goals is not important they can be small or large ones; what matters most is having a few so you can minimize spinning out on those thousands of what ifs and maybes that occur to you everyday.

What Happens If I Don't Set Any Goals At All?
 
Without goals, you're likely to find yourself hoping and wishing things will happen. If you're betting on luck, good fortune, or it being your turn, you might hit the jackpot. Then again, you might not. Luck is a wonderful thing, however, by its very nature it comes with no guarantees.  Luck can and does run out. If you go after your goals the old-fashioned way...by rolling up your sleeves and taking action...the power is in your hands, where it belongs.

Achieving goals not only motivates you, it also keeps you focused and on course, preventing you from going around in circles.  How can you know where you're going or how you'll get there if you don't have a clear destination in mind?  Goals allow you to steer your course rather than simply drifting along and letting life happen to you.  Setting goals sounds fairly easy, but for most people it can be quite challenging.  Setting goals can be unsettling because it means setting up the possibility of disappointing either yourself or someone else.  All fear of failure can be avoided if you never establish any goals at all.  After all, you can't fail if you never state what you want to achieve!

Can You Give Me An Example?

Here's a conversation I had with a 15-year-old dancer (Jessica) immediately following a workshop session:

"Someday, I would really like to dance back-up for Britney Spears" said Jessica.
I responded with , "Great. When would you like to see this happen?"
"Oh, someday. I'm in no hurry," she replied.
I probed further. "C'mon, tell me when?"
She stood her ground, "Maybe when I  relocate  to L.A...!"
"When might that be?" I asked.
"When the time is right," she responded a little defiantly.
I persisted.  "Ideally, when would that time be?"
"Oh, I don't know," she moaned, "not now, but someday"

I switched gears and asked what she was feeling.
"Pressured," she replied.
I asked her why and she responded, "Because I know it's what I want to do but I don't want to put a date on it.."
Again, I asked, "Why?"
"Because it depends on a lot of factors."
At last, I knew we were getting somewhere. "Like what?" I persisted.
"Well, for openers," she said, "I know I need to relocate to L.A. to get the kind of jobs I want. Right now,  I know  that six months of living in L.A. will probably  cost close to  $10,000. I haven't saved up anything  close to  that. The $1,500 I've got will barely last a month. So, without the  money,  it's stupid for me to set a date. To be honest with you, I'm afraid it will never happen that's why I try not to talk about it."

Sounds Like Fear About Money Got In Her Way...

It certainly was part of it.  Listening to Jessica reminded me that many of us resist setting goals without resources in place to realize the dream instantly. I reminded her that one of the secrets to goal setting is knowing you don't have to harvest the results immediately. Setting goals is like planting seeds. You put them in the ground, add some water, sunlight, and fertilize them. Sometime in the future little shoots emerge. You continue the caretaking until you have strong, sturdy plants coming up. We don't need all of the solutions on day one, do we?

Makes Good Sense To Me...

This conversation astonished Jessica. She thought that if she set a goal without all of the resources in place, she was kidding herself. She believed that "not now, but someday" was closer to telling the truth and being realistic.

Was She Willing To Deal With It?

She did even better. She was willing to establish a goal for herself. She was also willing to see, for the first time, that directing energy towards improving her financial picture would lessen her fear about the money.

Smart Girl.

A few weeks later, Jessica informed me that after a heart-to-heart with her parents, they offered to "match any savings she has accumulated by the time she graduates from high school. Jessica told them that with baby-sitting and summer jobs, she hoped to accumulate $4,000 by graduation. Now, with an additional $4,000 from her parents, she'll have the nest egg she needs for six months of living in Los Angeles.

Very Impressive.

She also adjusted her main goal. Apparently, she had taken a closer look at Britney's videos and saw that most of the female back-ups were the same height or shorter than Britney. Jessica, at 5'7, would tower over all of them. Jessica was not only making smarter decisions about money, she was making smarter decisions about everything.

How Did This Turnaround Happen?

Several reasons. First, by getting realistic about her goal and then understanding more about what she had to offer, Jessica was able to step outside the dream-and-fantasy cycle and recognize how a few adjustments improved her state of mind.

Good For Her...

Plus, the support from her parents contributed to her well-being. The matching-funds offer was a smart one. It put half of the task where it should be, in Jessica's hands...and it clearly showed Jessica how much her parents believed in her. Today, her goal is posted on her bathroom mirror, inside her school books, and on a corner of her computer screen. Everyday, she's reminded that Within two years of relocating to Los Angeles, I want to be actively employed 30 weeks a year dancing with a recording artist. Not bad for a dancer who was afraid to say what she really wanted only six months earlier.

Does The Head-In-The-Sand Thing Happen Often?

Like Jessica, many of us suffer from the someday-not-now syndrome. Every now and then, each of us indulges in it. Most incidents happen when our dreams are larger that our lives can manage at that particular moment in time. Instead of confronting the facts, sometimes we mistakenly store them away with pledges that we'll take care of them further down the road.

But We Conveniently Forget...

All too often, that's true.

What Should We Do Instead?

If there's a dream you're postponing on transforming into a goal, ask yourself what is standing in your way. If the response sounds like a list of excuses rather than realistic facts, you have your answer. It's time to break out of the someday-not-now syndrome and assign some realistic conditions to those dreams of yours.

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