We all have heard a million times how important it is to be goal centered. To have goals and to write them down. However, what does it actually mean to be goal centered?
Think on this for a few moments. Do you have goals? If someone were to stop you right now and ask you, what are your goals? Would you be able to provide them? Could you state them clearly? If you can say yes to that, then I am amazed. Most people cannot. They will lie to you and say they have goals, that those goals are important to them, but in reality they could not clearly articulate their goals on a moments notice because they are not top of mind. Sure, they could sit for a minute and ponder about what is currently relevant and create a few goals and they might even sound good. The reality is, however, most people do not know their goals, could not rehearse them, and do not think about them hardly at all during the course of their day.
I believe that the concept of being goal centered is focused on the above concept. If you have goals, have written them down, and could at any moments notice rehearse them then you are on your way to being goal centered. This is probably the first step. Create goals, write them down, and then spend enough time reviewing them that they are completely committed to memory and you have them in the forefront of your mind at all times. Is this enough?
I do not think so, albeit an important first step in being goal centered. Once this is accomplished the second step is to actually start using these goals to change your daily behaviour. I think that is what is meant by being truly goal centered. When you wake up each day, do you create a plan of action. Most people do not do that, but if you do, is that plan of action focused on helping to progress your goals? I would venture to say that a small percentage of the people that actually plan their days, will actually use their goals to do so. Just consider this for a moment longer. Only a small percentage of people are truly successful in any field. It seems, by all the leadership studies I have ever read, that those successful people have a few traits in common. The primary being that they lead goal centered lives.
So to summarize. Being goal centered is to 1. Have Goals. 2. Write them Down. 3. Actually know the goals, being able to recite them. 4. Use the goals every morning to create a plan of action for the day. Now we can get into a further discussion about the quality of goals, or how to set goals, how to write them, and how to take deliberate action to achieve them but that is not the point of being goal centered. You can certainly be goal centered on poorly written goals just as well as you can be goal centered on awesome, specific and measurable goals. The point is this – are the goals that you have actually part of your life?
If you are like me, you will lie to yourself on that question. You will say, yes, I am focused on my goals. You will think generally about what those might be. You might be able to fool yourself into thinking that you are actually planning and setting a course of action to achieve those goals. However, if you are really honest with yourself, you will probably notice that your daily action is not focused on achieving goals because you probably cannot articulate them and you have not taken the time to build a habit to work toward influencing your daily activity to achieve them.
This is probably why really successful people have this in common. They have goals and they actually work toward achieving them on a daily basis. Does not sound complicated, but for some reason it is really difficult to become goal centered. I have been working on this for a long time, and although I have built a consistent habit of planning my day every morning, I still struggle with incorporating clear and consistent goals into my planning. I have been really trying to improve this aspect for the last 64 days. Intense struggle, but I guess that is what achieving goals is all about!
Guy Reams
