Having goals in life is a way to keep oneself driven to work. We are always working towards our goals knowingly or unknowingly. People may not have immediate goals, but almost everyone has a lifetime ambition which is, “What do I ultimately want to become in life?”
What makes a goal achievable?
When you ask a 5-year-old what he or she wants to become in life the child invariably and unknowingly will come up with a long-term ambition. But for that time, you can reuse a paper bag with handles to make an aircraft for your child.
“I want to become a pilot.”
“I want to become a doctor.”
When you ask a college student a similar question, the answer is more realistic and related to short-term objectives.
- Break up the big goal into multiple small goals: Even though almost everyone has an ultimate goal in their lives, breaking it up into multiple penultimate ones such that each goal represents a stepwise approach to your ultimate ambition.
E.g. In this era of extreme environmental awareness, governments all over the world are trying to ban plastic bags due to their degrading and harmful impact on the environment. However, achieving this is not a feasible task if you start asking people not to use plastics from the very next day. Plastic bags can only be banned when it can be replaced with something having similar characteristics without the harmful ones. Thus, the first step would be to introduce the alternative brown paper bag with handles and make people aware of why they should be using the option.
- Patience: Patience is a rare to find quality these days; this quality is like jewels packed in plain gift boxes. Very ordinary looking individuals have made it real big in life with lots of patience and hard work. Everything may not always work according to what we have planned. Sometimes we may fail to achieve certain short-term deadlines which will result in desperation and hopelessness. At such times one shouldn’t give up. Instead, keep trying. Achieving a goal would become meaningless if there were no hurdles.
- Focus: Distraction can easily divert your mind from achieving your objectives. Do not be oblivious to potential distractions around, instead, try and be completely aware of them and know how to ward them off. Dealing with madness efficiently is also a separate goal.
- Self-Discipline: Self-discipline is a pre-requisite to resist distractions. However, it comes with a lot of practice. If you are really serious about achieving your goals, you need to incorporate discipline not only in specific tasks but also in your overall lifestyle. That way you are directing your lifestyle towards the goal.
- Restrain from bad habits: At times, failure to achieve short-term deadlines can lead to a lot of despair, especially when you feel that you have put in every bit of effort and nothing should have gone wrong. At such times you may become easily gullible to resorting to unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking and drugs. You feel that this will help you in overcoming your depression, but you are wrong. Instead, you are creating an obstruction.
- Do not look for shortcuts: Shortcuts are tempting. But they will never lead you to achieve your destination is the desired time. The reason is as soon as you take shortcuts, you are prone to make the wrong decisions. And this will undoubtedly lead you to failure.
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