The Tribune

BY MICHELLE M MILLER

TODAY is the 29th day of July, 2014. We are at the end of the seventh month in this amazing year, and before you know it this year will be gone.

Considering the high level of enthusiasm with which you set your goals for 2014 at this point, where are they now? Are they closer or are still very far away? How is your enthusiasm? Are you feeling good about your progress or beating yourself down for not having done as well as you’d hope?

Checking in with yourself in this way gives you a chance to step back and really assess what’s working for you, what may need to be tweaked or changed.

Understand that your goals must be about something. They must serve towards a bigger vision. Every vision needs a goal and every goal needs a strategy. Strategies, of course must be periodically evaluated to ensure effectiveness. Without measuring effectiveness, you won’t know if you’re coming or going.

Goals are the key to going where you’ve never been. They move you towards an elevated state that improves your personal and or professional disposition.

Of course setting goals and taking action to go after those goals are two different things. Too many folk get into the habit of talking about it, or supposedly setting it, but never get to getting it done. The primary reason is a lack of clarity and confidence about who they are, what they really want and why they want it.

Goals must be motivating and inspiring. They must drive you to keep going even when it get’s bleak. There’s no consistent action without strong motivation. This is why having meaningless goals are like walking around with sand bags. You become weighed down and demotivated.

Make certain that your goals that matter to you personally. Let them having meaning and not just some copycat fads that soon fizzles.

Like many others, you, too, may have been in hot pursuit to achieving something only to find that when you get it, it’s not what you really want. Get clearer and bigger about who you are and why you are going after what you’re going after.

Big goals require a flexible strategy of smaller goals so you can achieve it one piece at a time.

Your capacity is also critical. What does it take to make your goal a reality and do you have what it takes? Even if you don’t think you have it now, do believe that you can get it?

Know what you’re made and be willing to look at yourself with a broader lens; accepting that you do have what it takes to win at your life.

You see, there are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic time lines. If you can’t achieve the goal in the time you’ve set, don’t throw away the goal, instead be willing to adjust your time.

Be gentle with yourself. Goals are the key to the future in which you wish to live. Without goals nothing happens. While there will be challenges, there will also be successes.

Leader to leader, look again at where you are now and reassess your strategy to ensure you’re chosen path leads you to your goals for 2014.

Going for your goals is a great gateway to living the life you love.
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