Although I adhere to the SMART goal setting, you know, the goal setting in which you set goals that are
- Specific – your goal needs to be specific and include answers to what it is you want to accomplish
- Measurable – your goal needs to be measurable and include answers to questions such as how much? how many? etc.
- Attainable – your goal needs to be attainable, in other words your goal needs to be realistic. This is the area or point if you will that I’m amending a bit with this blog post.
- Relevant – choose a goal that matters. If it matters you will be better motivate to working towards actually achieving it.
- Time bound – a sense of urgency will force you or at least motivate you towards action steps to making your goal come to fruition.
I also find that in order to grow you sometimes need to set yourself a seemly impossible goal.
An impossible goal will force you to stretch yourself further and force you to dig down deeper to find resources and powers and creativity in yourself that you possibly didn’t even know you had. Going through the experience of an impossible goal achievement or at least attempt of achievement will help you grow. Chances are you probably tried this before, possibly without realizing it, cause if you have ever been in dire straights facing some really pressuring trouble then you more than likely were forced to dig down a bit further to find a way out or a way to a resolve to your situation. You probably didn’t really enjoy the experience because you were too focused on the pressure and stress caused by your situation, but in the process you more than likely grew. Grew your capacity and possibly grew your strength for facing similar situations. It’s like a muscle that gets stronger with use.
The great thing is that you can sometimes with benefit deliberately set yourself up with a goal that seemingly appears impossible. You never know – you may just actually achieve it anyhow and the process may actually inspire you and leave you exhilarated.
Choose a goal that encompasses something that you really would love to achieve even if it appears a little far fetched. Do this ever so often, but I suggest you focus on on single specif far fetched goal at the time. Once you have accomplished it (or indeed gotten as far as you can and must for now give up and move onto something else) then you can turn your attention to a new seemingly impossible goal.
Your goals can be anything, whether it is something physical, like lose a large amount of excess kilos in a very short period of time or run a marathon before the year is up. It can also be something financial. I often talk with people and converse with them about setting their yearly income as a target for becoming a monthly income. In other words that would be a 12 fold increase compared to their current income. To most people this would seem immensely impossible to achieve, yet I have met a numerous amount of people who have accomplished just that, or at least an 8-10 fold increase. Extraordinary and exponential results are very much possible, but we most often underestimate what we can accomplish.
And so what if you do not achieve that 12 fold increase in your income, if it only reaches an 8 or 10 fold increase, then for now, you will probably be able to appreciate the massive growth of your results.
Not stimulated or motivated by money? Not a problem. Perhaps your goal would be focused on achieving that degree you always wanted to get, or do that across the world travel. Or read more books. Your goals can be anything pretty much. The idea is just to stretch your goal beyond the just reachable. Try to expand your reach even further. Force yourself a little. Just with some of your goals for now. I believe, it is important to have success along your journey, so make sure you also have important goals that you actually will achieve. For those big seemingly impossible goals, you may wish to have small increments on the way to the end goal that you can surely reach some of, but which would still force you to try harder than you would without the goals set.
Finally, remember to enjoy the journey.
Mikkel Pitzner During The 2012 Drei Laender Giro
