If you spend any time looking at life management strategies, the topic of goals is sure to come up. Last column, I looked at goals from the perspective of what we might want to give up. This time, I’ll take the more usual approach; let’s look at the goals we want to move toward, acquire, or achieve. What do we want to go for?
In “A Set of Directions for Putting and Keeping Yourself Together,” Dr. Bob Wubbolding has a few words about goals. First of all, he’s for them. He writes that setting goals is a necessary step toward achieving what we want.
OK then! Let’s say that we’ve decided to set some goals. How to start? Here are a couple of suggestions.
The first relates to the basic needs I’ve focused on in recent columns. According to Choice Theory, satisfying those needs: security/survival, power/recognition, love/belonging, freedom, and fun, is the key to a satisfying life.
What do you find when you look at those needs in your life? If you find a distinct lack of satisfaction of a particular need, then you may well have found an effective starting point for goal-setting.
However, if looking at basic needs doesn’t help you in your goal setting process, then try a less structured approach. My second suggestion is to simply ask yourself: “What is the life I want to live? What does that look like?”
Goals are often stated in terms of what we want to acquire, such as houses, cars, money, and so on. Achievement is also a fertile goal area, with career goals, sports goals, recognition goals, and more.
Yet the life we want to live probably involves more than what we have and what we achieve. For example, consider how and with whom you want to spend your time. For some people, good relationships, loved pets, welcoming neighbours, and a community that shares their values are essential to a satisfying life.
Perhaps you have looked at your wants and decided, “I don’t want anything.” Even so, you may have this implied want: “But I want to keep what I have.” That is actually a big want, isn’t it? Material things may come to mind first, but as the years creep up, we may notice that what we most want to keep is our sharpness of mind, our sense of humour, and relationships we have nurtured over the years.
If you’re one of those folks who regularly looks at the obituary pages, only to find more and more people you know, then sadly, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Well, we all know that reality about what we can and can’t control. Some of our wants we can do absolutely nothing about. It’s the others, those where we can have an impact, where we can set worthwhile goals.
When you do so, you may be like me and figure that it’s enough to casually think about goals. But Dr. Bob takes a sterner stance. He writes, “If your goals are to be achieved, they need to be written down. It is not enough to ‘just keep them in your head.’”
Well, that’s disappointing. Speaking for myself, I have a lot of stuff in my head. Shouldn’t that be enough?
Not according to Dr. Bob. If you want a new car, get a picture of it. If you want a less stressed life, take a picture of you being less stressed. It’s occurred to me that some of us may have a hard time assuming a ‘relaxed pose’ for even the few seconds we would need to take that picture. Maybe that’s the first necessary step toward achieving the goal!
What goals are you prepared to go for?
