The Life Changing Magic of Getting Clear on Your Goals

The Life Changing Magic of Getting Clear on Your Goals

By Nathan Cody Young

“Begin With the End in Mind means to begin each day, task, or project with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination, and then continue by flexing your proactive muscles to make things happen.”

Dr. Stephen R. Covey

Setting Goals Can Be Deceptively Difficult.

Getting clear on our goals in life might seem like a relatively simple thing to ask of ourselves. Get a good job, find somebody to be in a relationship with, buy a house one day… These are the goals we grew up believing we were supposed to have, right?

Yet, as many of us have found, these goals aren’t so easily achieved.

For starters, they’re a lot more complicated to make happen than many of us might have been sold when we were younger.

To make it even more confounding, as adults we might be realizing that these aren’t even be the goals we really want for ourselves.

We don’t want a job or a house or standard relationship. We want something simpler. Or more extravagant. Or more unconventional.

What Does It Take to Set Productive Goals?

Yet, no matter what goals we may or may not have, the internal challenges we experience around goal setting is usually the same.

We doubt ourselves.

We find that the things we want out of life are hard to define and wildly out of reach.

We might not feel worthy of our dreams, or talk ourselves out of every idea we have before we even give it a chance.

The whole process might seem so nuanced and complicated that we push it off another day.

Worst yet, what if we make a goal and don’t achieve it?

Then we’re really a failure, right?

Your Goals Tell You Where You Want To Go

Despite these challenges, the first most important step in any journey is getting clear on where you want to go. The more specific you get the better.

You wouldn’t go get in your car and start driving without a basic idea of where you wanted to go, right? So why would you do that with your life?

To take the metaphor a step further, this is quite possibly the reason you’re not getting in the metaphorical car in the first place. You have no idea where you want to go!

Worst yet, instead of making a decision, you just hopped on the closest train and let it take you where ever it was going, whether that’s where you wanted to be or not.

Goals Happen One Step at a Time

The biggest mistake I see many people make when it comes to setting goals is they set goals that are out of proportion with where they’re at in their life right now.

I know a lot of us are told we should “aim for the stars” with our goals, but all too often I see people do this and end up disappointed. They’re trying to make a giant leap, but the truth is that goals more often come to fruition one step at a time.

Start by making goals based on where you’re at now.

If one of your goals is to be healthier, don’t pretend you’re going to be a gym rat over night. Start with a goal of drinking a glass of water tomorrow. Then expand to a glass of water every morning and build up from there.

The positive momentum you’ll gain from achieving each little goal will propel you to greater heights from there.

Create Your Goals Based on Where You’re At Right Now

This can also relate to the clarity and ambition you have with your ultimate long term goals.

If what you want for your life seems unclear or wildly out of reach, set your sights on something closer, clearer, and more attainable.

Maybe this means getting clear on a new career direction, getting $5000 in savings, or taking just one trip as a prelude to that amazing globetrotting life you hope to one day have.

The most important part of it all is that you start.

Getting Clarity On Your Goals is Going to Be an Ongoing Process

As your life and journey progress two things will happen.

One, you’ll become progressively clearer on what it is you actually want.

And two, you’ll also become progressively more empowered to create more audacious goals for yourself.

All that will come in time.

For now I just want to prescribe the simplest first step.

Here’s The First Step In Making Better Goals

Take out a piece of paper or open a new document on your computer.

List out a couple ambitions you have. No need to over think it. This exercise is just to acquaint yourself with a process, not fix your whole life. Limit the amount of ambitions you list to five.

For each ambition, list 2-3 things that you could do towards that goal in the next 24 hours.

If you want to get healthier, consider drinking a glass of water or doing 30 pushups against a wall.

If you want to save money, consider opening a savings account or not eating out tomorrow.

The goal isn’t to move mountains. The goal is to simply show yourself that you can use agency.

This is a muscle you’ll need to learn to exercise just like any other muscle in your life.

So start small with a load you can handle. Things will build up quicker than you think.