How to Avoid Defaulting on Your Goal

In everyday conversation the term goal and the manner about achieving it brings to the fore the observed cause of its failure. Most goals are reduced to mere wishes irrespective of their significance in the stand of things. Wishes are driven by mere emotions and emotions don’t achieve goals. The term goal can comprise a broad activity the sum of which may not usually turn out to be the whole. The sheer excitement of the significance of a task may drive most people to get emotional rather than pragmatic while setting goals as well as going about achieving them, this can end up being counter productive.

Following the 3 keys to keep up with a goal here are 3 more virtues to help you build a steam head towards achieving your goal.

1.       

     Accountability - developing the ability to give account of every effort, time and resource committed to the goal. To fulfill a task or bring about the reality of an idea, having a goal alone is not enough. Every goal is a mini project in its right worthy of a plan, a time span and perhaps a budget if necessary. All these however will amount to little when there is zero accountability. If a farmer by conscious effort cultivates his land, it will yield the desires produce, if otherwise by negligence he fails to cultivate, the farm will still grow plants but this time unproductively. Accountability includes but is not limited to asking yourself the right questions, knowing what is expected of every input and seeing that expectations are met. If I’m going to be spending an hour a day to achieve this goal what percentage of the whole am I expecting to complete in that hour? Accountability puts the backbone into people who might otherwise let their responsibility slip.

2.    

            Responsibility: most people see themselves as the function of their success and not their failure. One may rightly agree that success has many fathers while failure has just one. Seeing yourself as the sole function of either the success or failure of your goal puts you in good position psychologically and motivationally to own as well as live up to the responsibility goal wise. When you own up to responsibility of eventual outcome prior to events you kill the chance of excusing yourself when the difficult aspects of activity approach.

3.    

            Commitment: in this three action plan I discussed the far reaching effects this virtue can have on achieving a goal through a set plan. Responsibility begets commitment, people comparatively feel important when they are assigned responsibility over something. They must believe in a way they are trusted to be handed the said responsibility, so a normal person as not to disappoint that trust, will commit to the responsibility. A worthy goal deserves a plan and the plan is anything to go by, it must be committed to.

The probability of achieving a goal driven by emotion alone is 5 times lesser when compared to having a plan about it. It is 7 times more certain that you will complete a goal when you affirm it by committing someone else you will do it. It becomes almost 100% certain that a goal will be completed if there exist a specific accountability appointment someone else not lacking in the necessary commitment live up to the expected responsibility the task brings.

3 Wonders about Maturity

Growth is a natural phenomenon; its effect is not usually a function of choice (at least with regards to physical growth). While one choose in moral, mental or spiritual growth it is however not the case with physical growth. As one can arrive at physical maturity without mental maturity, so can one attain both of these without moral maturity.

  

  1. Here is a child it never felt any need, whatsoever it needs it gets even without asking. At a stage of its development the significant features are not yet functional. The baby has a lot of things that are surplus to requirement. I don’t need all these (hands, legs and the rest), in my world (womb) these are not necessary. Little does she know that the world she dwells would not continue indefinitely, the hands and feet etcetera which seem surplus to requirements are a preparation for another world she must have to embrace. Change will surely come for you little baby and the effect will follow the cause, you will enter a new world, you will grow and all the features which seem out of place in your previous world will find their place of use here.

  2. Here is a flamboyant butterfly, few days back it was just another ugly meandering smelly creature causing more of havoc than good to the green. Such a destructive creature the caterpillar, of such that its destructive ability was mentioned in the scriptures. But today you grace each plant with your wonderful kisses, no more are you havoc to budding helpless vegetation. Your kisses are magical both to budding plants and full grown trees. What a transformation, who taught you these things little sunshine? Your colors grace sunrise and at sunset you look just beautiful in nature. Would you have believed if I told you (caterpillar) that you will be this tender and beautiful creature – butterfly?

   

 3. Here is the kite gliding so high in the sky. It looks with a swelling satisfaction upon the earth from the skies. Everyone admires its dynamism in flight as the little boy carefully and cautiously pull its string, steering the kite away from danger. Release me declares the kite, I want to be free. I want to glide with the wind, not be controlled by some string. As its craving increased, snap went the string and zoom the kite with the wind up into the skies. Oh this is freedom declares the kite, I now control my glide. Ok here comes the current, time to glide even higher and faster. An unpleasant surprise awaits the renegade kite; it’s swept mercilessly by the same usual winds it would easily glide in, into the waiting razor sharp blades of the green.

Letter from Antiquity

Here is a letter from a pietist to his son

…in order to serve God faithfully at all times, remember that wherever you are God is with you, seeing and hearing everything you think, say or do. This thought will often keep you from doing evil and spur you on to do good; it will even be the reason for all the good you do…

Be diligent in your work, pay attention to everything and remember always that the profession you are learning now will not only be the means of earning a livelihood for the rest of your life but also that of serving God and your fellow man. Remember also that to a large extent, it depends on you whether you will be a useless person or whether you will amount to something in the world.

Therefore you must pray to God with all your heart for His Holy Spirit, and also expend all possible effort and care during your years of apprenticeship.

Courtesy World History: The Human Odyssey

                                                                                                                      

Before You Lift Your Life

If one must lift one’s life by any mean’s, one must then first lift one’s thought and then one’s hope. There is strength to be gained from this knowledge. Your success, development, failure, misfortune, weakness and strength are yours and non other’s. If you must improve the statusquo, you must take personal responsibility of your lot and development.

Success they say has many fathers but failure only one. Most people would readily pick a bias from that idea to support their laziness and deviate responsibility. There is sense in knowing how much of your success depends on you and how much of your progress can be contributed from external sources. This I think will put you in good position to make decisions and reach out to your goal rather than wait for external prompts that may not happen. If you don’t know where you are going or what you want you may not recognize when you get there or achieve it, that’s a fact.

No one is an island anywhere not in this 21^st century. That you can walk alone doesn’t mean you are living alone, you have seven billion neighbors – knew that? One must get to that stage in life where to be efficient they must not only co-operate but synergize, until that stage each person must take personal responsibility of their effectiveness and success and become the sole initiator triggering the progress of his own accomplishment. None other will do that for him. If you must get help, you must show the will and competence to receive it first. A strong cannot help the weaker unless that weaker is willing to be helped declared Allen. The direction of one’s life will most definitely follow the same hue as set by one’s thought, whether good or vice. They speak loudest – our thoughts.The thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular individual. Preserve a right mental attitude.

How Responsibility begets Commitment and Improvement

Nothing adds pep to work like commitment. Showing consistent commitment to a goal may encounter hindrances which come in different forms en route progress. Working on human basis you would rightly observe that expectations are often met with disappointment when you expect people to act in a certain manner without being told. Give someone responsibility and s/he will have reason to show commitment. 

Failure could be such a vice or perhaps an evil to some people that they would do anything to avoid it or be termed as one. To that effect they would strive to return what was committed to them in one piece rather than destroy it in attempt to improve it. Failure is not a vice rather fear is an evil. In attempt to avoid failure for the fear of its following effect people tend to choose options which may be counter productive.

Why did the servant in the talent parable hide his talent unlike his colleagues who braved it and multiplied theirs? Plenty are the possible answers but one of most interest is that the faint hearted servant failed to own the talent. Again the answers are plenty why he failed to own it. The fastest way to be wastefully unproductive is by seeing your job as another’s responsibility – a fast way to waste land.

The beginning of failure for most employees in this regards is the tendency to withdraw from this idea of ownership and responsibility. Whoever cannot obey himself, receives command. If you see yourself as working for yourself you will do the best for it, certainly a different case with some lazy fool – I mean that in a polite manner. Seeing it as working for yourself, certainly the ideas for improvement will flow.

Upon creation the world was basically committed to man. In essence ownership was handed over to him. Most people don’t see it that when responsibility is given to them no matter how temporal they are rightful owners of the lot. Again I mean this in a respectful manner. With an attitude of ‘oh I’m just managing it for the real owner’ you will not by any means earn the respect of the real owner. I have seen regular employees win the trust and respect of their employers with sheer responsibility and commitment to their task no matter how little. These ones are deserving of much irrespective of qualifications. Some other people spend years in  their job showing least commitment and even lesser improvement to their activity. There are far deeper reasons to lack of commitment and passion than responsibility. As we expect responsibility and accountability and responsibility from our subordinates, so does God from us. Failing to take ownership and responsibility of ones affairs will definitely plunge one to less advantage levels of receiving commands.

How to Develop Ability

Ability – the power to carry out a task, the strength to see through a goal; the want of it owes to much why most people fail in their endeavors, not really for want of will or skill. Underachievement especially now days don’t really owe to want in knowledge, information surplus abounds as well as the opportunity to achieve whatsoever one may earnestly desire. We usually know what we want; hence the predominant question of this age is not what but why.

The little I know declared Sacha Guitry I owe to my ignorance. The ignorance these days take more of a willful shape than otherwise. Ignorance has never been a good enough answer for failure even less in these times where information flows at ones command.

It has never ceased to amaze me man’s dynamism, I say this with positive disposition, the potential that lies within and the wonder he can make out of himself, how he can change his situation and inspire the life of others. Ability, competence and skill that tend to excellence form a progression of development any progress minded person would strive to experience. Situations exist where what is required of one is beyond what their ability can make happen, that is understandable. Then one must depend on higher powers – God.

I learned from kindergarten about first aid, its first cuts across all aspects of human endeavor and education. The first help you can get principally comes from you; the best help comes from God.

Strength can be developed through effort and practice, one begins to exert oneself by applying this knowledge carefully. Adding effort to effort, patience to patience and strength to strength then one will not cease to develop in their endeavor.

As a man perfects himself in his calling even so does his ability to earn increase. Ability can only be recognized by their fruits in words or deeds. Most people are naturally born with special abilities, indeed every one has their unique area of specialty whether by default or development.

Anyone would increase in ability who shows a willing desire to perfect in their calling. If one wishes to enjoy the fruits of excellence they must cultivate the seeds thereof. The secrete behind perfection is much like an open one hidden under plain view because people willfully choose not to see it – practice. Any outstanding athlete or performer would tell you how they work out their nose to sharpen their ability. Practice at its principal level I think adds backbone to the frame of perfection. It’s your surest way to exert yourself but by far the least enjoyable thing to do.

Everything means many things to different people. Like practice could mean the best thing to one seeks perfection, pleasure on the other hand means the world to any fool. It is estimated that it would require 10 years or an equivalent 10 thousand hours of effort to attain excellence, especially in sports/performance related fields.