Where are you driving?
Do you know the destination?
Do you need to know the destination to achieve success?
Let’s take a closer look. If I asked you to drive to Brisbane (from Melbourne), how would you do it? Look at a map, pack some supplies, fill up the petrol tank, let your friends and family know you’re going on a journey? Even if you didn’t know the exact name of all the roads, would you be able to make a start in the right direction? Could you then work out the specifics of your journey as you go? This is exactly how your long term health goals work. Always start out with the destination in mind, not just the intended plan for the next day.
It doesn’t matter if you are unsure of exactly how you’ll get to your long term goal. In fact this is a good thing as it requires you to get creative with your thinking and apply some action. Who can help? What do I need? Who do I need to be? For example, at Tailored Health do you think I know exactly how I’m going to empower people on 1,000,000 occasions by 2025? The answer is “No” or “Not yet!” However, having this ambitious long term goal helps motivate me to get out of bed every morning and take actions NOW in the right direction. What would be a big goal that would do the same for you? This goal could be in any area of your life and would ideally be something that you’re passionate about. If you aren’t passionate about your goal please keep re-writing your goal until you find that it motivates you and you can answer why you are doing it.
The difference between dreams and goals in my opinion, is that a goal is written down with actionable steps in place whereas a dream is exactly that, all still in your head. We know that writing down goals will ensure you are 42% more likely to achieve them compared to those who don’t as Dr. Gail Matthews, psychology professor, discovered in her research (link below).
Let’s take a look at the alternative. If I asked you to jump in your car RIGHT NOW and drive, what would you do? Where would you go? How would you know if you were on the right track? Are you making progress or are you going in circles driving past the same location for the tenth time. Are you living “ground hog” day?
It’s always possible to work backwards from a goal set in the future and take repeated actions towards the goal, day in and day out. No matter how big or distant. However, it would only be by complete chance if you were to take a step in the right direction towards a “dream” of yours. Even then, it would be easy for you to drift off track back towards where you started or worse, further away from where you started!
I know which situation I’d rather. What about you? What are your big goals?
Feel free to let me know what you think about this post and if you would like to get more help to create big health goals or to break down your big health goals into bite size chunks contact me on ben@tailoredhealth.com.au or comment on this blog.
Link: http://www.dominican.edu/dominicannews/study-highlights-strategies-for-achieving-goals
