Thought 48: Goals

Thought 48 (a)
List your priority needsList Your Priority Needs3

Although, it is easier to manage happiness than adversity, happiness also has to be managed carefully. Things that you seek in life seldom happen by merely wishing for them. They do not happen unless you are willing to earn them - through investment of energy and effort.

There are many facets to life, like relationships, health, home environment, education, finance, acquiring assets, friends, social contacts, social obligations, spiritual aspects etc, any of which, can influence your happiness. All these facets need to be managed. You cannot possibly address, however, all these needs simultaneously. You can at best take three or four of them at a time, for immediate action and address the remaining later.

Address Your Priority Needs FirstAddress Your Priority Needs First3

List your needs and prioritize them. Goals are your urgent needs, which you wish to address immediately. When you attend to your needs on this basis, you add a new meaning, direction and dimension to your efforts. You create a new expectancy and hope in your life, leading to fulfillment.

All happy or successful people have goals in life. They know where they want to go and what is the direction of their ultimate destination. It is said that if you do not know where you want to go, then, almost any road will take you there. You must be clear about where you want to go, if you have to know what to do to get there.

Goal settingGoal Setting3

Setting and achieving goals gives you the feeling that you are in control. You work at your best when you are seeking some thing, which you want to accomplish. You will canalize and direct your energy and resources, productively.

Goals and their achievement is the key for improving your quality of life. It is said that “if we do not have specific goals, we will be almost certain to work for those who have”. We can be anything that we want to be - if we can decide clearly what it is. Strangely, it is also necessary sometimes to be clear about what you do not want – before you are able to clearly define what you want in life.

Goals and objectives could relate to individuals and families as also to corporate entities. They also could relate to a short or long horizon. They could be specific or visionary. When they are visionary, they are commonly called objectives; goals have to be specific in nature. Visions take a long time to become realities; goals relate to shorter horizons.

A goal must be specific – otherwise you do not know if you achieved it or not. If you say that you want to be, say, “a better computer programmer”, the question arises as to what is ‘better’. Goals should be differentiated from results. “I want happiness” is not a useful statement of goal. Happiness cannot be a goal. Your goal should be stated in terms of specific steps, which when executed, will result in happiness.

Once you are able to set your golas, then onwards, you have to keep them under the spotlight all the time to focus on them – without allowing any distractions to disturb your focus. There is a well-known story in Mahaabhaarata (the Mahaabhaarata period is estimated to be about 5000 years ago) about how the venerable teacher Dorna taught and tested his students about focusing on goals. He was the teacher for both the Kaurvas nd Paandavas. One day he took all his students to a forest and called one by one to narrate what he saw on the yonder tree, which he pointed to them. One of them said he saw a lot of leaves; another said he saw a number of branches; and many of them gave this kind of irrelevant answers in different versions - except Arjuna. Arjuna said that he saw the eye of a parrot on one of the branches. Drona said, “Shoot it with an arrow” and Arjuna did it immediately – and the parrot fell at his feet.

The next thought is about “Corporate objectives and goals”