Alan W. Goff
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The Goal Setting Gap
(Part 3)
‘Continued from part 2
The biggest mistake we make when we set goals is we tend to limit that which we want, really because we don’t know or have any idea of how to get it. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, doesn’t it? Because if we knew how to get it, we would already have it… wouldn’t we? I think the lesson being missed here is that "how to do something" has never mattered.
It has always been the "why" that has driven successful people. Back in 1963 Mary Kay Ash had absolutely no idea that she was going to own ‘Mary Kay Cosmetics’. She took her life savings, had to get a man to sign an agreement to lease 500 square feet of retail space because in 1963, you had to have a man sign on the dotted line for you - if you were a woman. Her definiteness of purpose was to ‘Enrich Women’s Lives’. She didn’t even know it was going to be accomplished through the vehicle of cosmetics, she just knew she wanted to change to world and empower women. She didn’t know how that was going to happen but she had a "why" behind her desire. Therefore nothing was allowed to stand in her way.
Thomas Edison didn’t know how he was going to illuminate the world. Maybe his "why" was he was tired of kerosene or paraffin wax. The Wright brothers did not roll out some plans on the table and say, "we are going to build this %@^* thing one time and one time only and if we don’t get it right we are going to scrap it". No. They didn’t know how they were going to build it. They had a ‘why’ and that’s all they had… and quite simply, that is the key.
What is it that you want…? I mean really, really want? Take at least a minute and think about what do "YOU WANT". If I was to make a list of the things I knew about goal setting back when I first started to study this, you could probably reduce it down to the size of a postage stamp. When I started to study this material, I knew that I had to set goals. I knew that there were long-term and short-term goals. I knew I should have a start date and I knew that it should be specific.
I remember reading one of Earl Nightingale’s works. He said, "Ideas and goals are like slippery fish… If you don’t gaff them with the point of a pencil, they will slip away, never to return." So I knew I had to write them down. But that is really all I knew and I think that is what most people know and that really prohibits people from closing the gap between goal setting and goal achieving.
I said earlier that goal achieving is really a lawful process. For now we will proceed into what I know is the most important thing to grasp in closing the gap and that is to come up with or discover your own personal purpose.
Purpose is like the sun… it never moves. Everything else uses the sun as its center. This purpose of why you are here does exactly that if we let it. Having a definite purpose removes the confusion that is experienced when attempting to choose a goal. You are able to uncap a huge fountain of inspiration that will help keep you persistent and resilient at times when those qualities are required to deal with some of the trying situations you will face when perusing what it is you want.
More importantly just as our children have to learn the basics in school of addition in order to excel into mathematics, the basics in working with these orderly laws is that we need a solid foundation to build on in order to move efficiently through the goal setting process. You can look back to your purpose to see if the vision you have is in harmony with your purpose. Then you make decisions based on a question of: ‘Is this vision, goal or opportunity going to move me closer towards my desire?’ Is it in harmony with your purpose? You and only you will know if the answer fits and if it does… you must close the gap and act.
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