Today, I'll answer a commonly asked questions when it comes to achieving goals -- Is having a goal enough?
I'll answer this question with my friend Karen's story. So let's first have a quick recap about her situation.
In the last email, I talked about how Karen realized that to break out of the rut, she had to change her perspective in seeing her challenges. Together, we broke down her attitude into two areas to fix: blaming outside circumstances, such as her busy work and lack of support from family, and believing that staying the same would somehow give different results.
The conclusion comes to this: To change the old pattern, you must change what you do. And,
to change what you do, you must know what you want and set a goal based on it.
Having a goal can mean different things to different people. People who have a fuzzy idea of what they want can hardly have a clear goal. Some people have a pretty clear goal and know what they want, which is better. Others may even write their goals down and have a rough idea of how they will do it, for example "I want to get fit, so I will go to the gym for 1 hour each day."
But, is having a goal good enough?
In our experience, it's very far from what you need.
A lot of people fall into the trap of
not really understanding what they want in the first place. Most people make New Year's resolutions for the sake of it, never understanding their intention and what they truly want.
Some people know what they want to change. For example, wanting to lose weight, or exercise once a day etc. but they don't know why.
Any type of change takes work and consistent action. For it to be sustainable, you need to know why:
Why do you want to change this? For example, if you want to get fit... why? To be healthier? To feel more confident? To feel attractive?
A goal with no clear purpose is doomed to fail. Even if it's accomplished, you can feel incomplete still.
For Karen, she knew what she wanted -- to finish the marketing program and get some sort of certificate. It was pretty straightforward.
But, when I asked her
why, she wasn't sure.
Her first answer didn't really get to the root of what she wanted, so I taught her the
5 Why's Framework -- a way to dig down and really find out the
fundamental intention. Sometimes it takes a few tries and asking the right questions.
Here's how her flow ended with an "aha" moment:
- Why do I want to take the course?
So that I can improve my qualifications at marketing. - Why improve qualifications?
Because I want to take my career further and take on more leadership roles. - Why do I want a leadership role?
Because I want to take charge of a campaign from beginning to end. - Why can't I do that now?
Because I'm not proactive enough in being the point person that others follow. - Why is that?
Because I'm afraid of public speaking situations and presenting my ideas to a live audience.
The final answer set off a light bulb in her head. It turns out that Karen was actually already very experienced with marketing. She'd come up with many brilliant ideas and was involved in many successful past campaigns.
After doing the 5 Why's, her weakest area was actually something completely different from the goal of a marketing course. In fact, she was secretly terrified of presenting in front of a lot of people. This the key factor really holding her back from taking a leadership role and advancing her career.
She didn't need more marketing qualifications. Taking that marketing course was boring and tedious because it was for the wrong reasons -- plus, she already knew the material!
Now she knew that her focus should instead be on how to overcome her fear in public speaking and improve her live presentation skills.
While it seems simple in hindsight, without taking a step back for serious reflection, it's not something that everyone can see right away.
How about you? Do you understand the "why" behind your New Year's resolution?
If you don't even fully understand your New Year's resolutions, then it's an indication of something deeper --- how about your other goals and decisions in general?
Understanding why you want to do something is a key part of Motivation --- a Cornerstone Skill that forms the basis of life success and happiness. The simple 5 Why exercise was just one technique I pulled out to apply in a practical situation. There's a lot more.
Want to know how Karen's story goes on? I will continue with it tomorrow and explain the
"how" after knowing the
"why". Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Leon
