Best Goals Aren’t The Big Goals

Big Goals Aren’t The Big Goals

«Lofty dreams in the distant future are a difficult burden to carry. The best goals may be those you can handle in the next week, the next day, the next hour, or the next step. Create a process that yields many small successes.» — Dan Millman

In this quote, Millman points out one of the ways in which we unwittingly sabotage our own success.

We pick a good goal, a worthy goal, that is way out in the future. And for a while we work diligently on achieving it.

The problem is that the goal still seems way out there, even after we’ve worked on it for quite a while.

So gradually the desire wears us down and we get distracted by other things, and we never get to the goal.

So let’s remember to follow Milman’s advice. Trace out the path to our goal and find good places on the path to create milestones, the string of intermediate goals that we have to go through to get there.

Then celebrate those intermediate goals with enthusiasm! Each one is a milestone, and every time we hit a milestone we know we’re closer to the big goal.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

NO LAWS OF AVERAGES HERE

«If we have no clear end in mind, we can become unconscious participants in the law of averages.» — Jesse Jennings

This quote is an excellent reminder of the consequences of our non-choices. If we don’t set an intention we are asking for a randomly chosen result in that situation.

That’s why thinking through our day and setting intentions is so important. Even though our results may not exactly match our intentions, we have biased the results in our favor, even if only a little bit.

Of course, we all forget at times to do this, but every little bit helps. We can work at developing a habit of asking ourselves, every time we shift activities, what the intention is that we desire for what’s next.

The more complicated and chaotic that your life is, the more important setting your intention is, because there’s a bigger opportunity for things to go astray.

Some of us may wish we had known these process years ago, but it is never too late to begin your life with a goal in mind. Life is full of push and pull of circumstances and knowing to set intentions are a big help.

Just keep asking yourself, «How do I want this to turn out?» and then imagine the result in your mind in clear, vivid imagery.

Hold that thought, and get to work!