If you and I were going to go sailing out on the ocean, you’d say to me “Katie, where are we going?” And I would say, “Well, I don’t really know. Not only do I not have any idea where we are going, but I have disconnected the rudder and we are just going to float where we float.”
Many people without a goal, or an idea of where they want to go will produce behaviour that has no direction. And so they’ll end up wherever they end up.
Your goal should contain what it is you want to accomplish from the end state. What is it that you are looking for in terms of your own personal accomplishment of this goal? What will that goal look like, sound like, and feel like specifically?
You need to be so specific about your goals that you know when you have got them. Sometimes people write a goal “It would make me happy if I was lighter”. This isn’t a specific goal, as lighter could mean just a couple of hundred grams. To write a goal for weight loss (or for anything) it should be written in the present tense, and the goal should be a description of the end state which you hope to accomplish.
I am now healed from the emotional and physical damage of my disordered eating. I fit comfortably into my size 10 clothes and I love the sexy naked body I see in the mirror. I rarely think about what I eat because it seems easy and natural to eat the way my body prefers to stay lean and healthy. I feel light, energised and alive and my heart is filled with love for myself and for others.
If you apply the five principles for success, the keys to an achievable outcome and the well-formed conditions and you put these together every time you set a goal for yourself, you will arrive at a goal that is inspiring and magnificent.
If you’ve already written your goals for 2011, or your goal for this month, why don’t you go back and make some changes. Craft your goal statement so that it becomes more like your mission statement (present tense, from the end state).
I would love it if you shared what your new and improved goals sound like in the comments.