I’ve never met anyone who makes it a goal to fail. I meet few people who are comfortable settling for mediocrity. Most people want to be successful. The big question is:
How do you define success?
The funny thing about most people is that when you ask them for their success goal, they hem-haw around with things like:
I want to be happy.
I want to see my kids graduate college.
I want to retire someday.
While these might be feel-good goals, they really have NO tangible milestones or key metrics. If that’s the case, you’ll never really know if you’ve arrived. After all:
- How do you define “Happy?” Is it the lack of disease, the amount of smiles per hour, or the fact that your happy days outnumber your sad days?
- So what if your kids graduate college? Do you want them to move back in with you so they have a nice wall to hang their diploma on?
- Everyone will retire someday. Retirement means I’m not working anymore. Do you want to leave with a pension, have fun activities to do, or volunteer?
See all of these goals are without real places to plant the flag and declare victory.
Rather than this, why not set some REAL goals so you can identify success and declare a victory:
Here are some examples:
- I’d like to improve my health by getting my cholesterol down to 50 from it’s current level of 68. I’d also like to increase my exercise to 30 minutes per day where my heart rate stays between 80 – 150 for 20 of those minutes. Finally, I want to reduce my intake of alcohol down to two beers per week, down from 65.
- I’d like to set my stop-work (retirement) day to June 1, 2020. My goal is to spend my first year visiting my grandkids for a week in Nevada. I’d also like to volunteer one day per week at the church. I will also devote one day per week to writing my memoirs. In year #2, I’d like to attend one continuing education course per week at the local college, etc. etc.
Of course these are just normal goals. If this is success for you, then go for it.
But what would happen if you set some really BIG goals for yourself? The type of goals that if you accomplished them would give you even more tangible success?
More on that in this POST.
For now, be sure to define your success clearly. If you don’t, you’ll never really know how to celebrate. And time will have passed that you can’t really learn from or account for. Don’t let it happen to you.
