Life Purpose and Goals

The secret to realizing your life's purpose is powerful goals. People who live meaningful lives know what their life's purpose is and they also know how to support that purpose with effective goals.

The two things work together. The clearer our life purpose, the more solid our goals. The better formulated our goals, the stronger our sense of life purpose.

As Jim Rohn says, "If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you."

The Challenge

Setting goals is not as simple as deciding what you want to do. Some goals work better than others and goal setting is a skill. The more we practice, the better we get at setting goals that really work.

No one would argue that goals aren't important. Yet, we do not always know how to make them work. The reasons we may feel unprepared to set goals are complex and depend on the person. We may never have learned how to set powerful goals, or we not have seen the benefits of clear goals modelled in others.

According to Stephen Covey, "Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them."

5 Tips for Setting Effective Goals

The following checklist was designed by Jack Canfield in "The Success Principles". To ensure that your goals will be effective, ask yourself these questions:

1. Is your goal specific and measurable?
2. Do you believe your goal is something you can actually do?
3. Have you told people about your goal?
4. Is there a time limit on your goal?
5. Are you prepared to accept challenges and deal with them positively?

Lead the Life You Desire

In recent months, we have been working on an online offering of the Lead the Life You Desire training program. Principle 6 in this program is Unleash the Power of Goal Setting.

We are fortunate to have a strong example of the principle in action right here on the UpCloseTeam. In addition to her business skills, Reanne is a song writer and musician. In 2020, she set a goal to release at least one original song by the end of the year. She'd put her music into the world before, but was feeling like things had started to lag.

A specific and measurable goal she believed she could accomplish was exactly what she needed to put her dreams into action. In the middle of March, she wrote the song. Then, she shared it with peers who gave her a strong critique. After that, she booked with a producer, lined up the details for recording the song, and promoted it to radio stations. Everything fell into place and the song was released in September. For a listen, visit Spotify or Apply Music. You'll hear the longing for home and her love of the prairies—the reasons she wrote the song.

The thing about setting a goal and achieving it is the benefits do not stop with you. Now, when Reanne sees other people with dreams and aspirations, she shares her success story and she encourages them to set a goal.

Call to Action

1. Take time this week to review and implement the 5 tips for setting effective goals.

Your Friends,
The UpCloseTeam