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by Jayaram V
A lot of people do not believe in goals and do not keep them. They just
drift
along, rather aimlessly, expecting the best, but not doing
enough to secure their future. For them having goals is rather a tedious
affair for which one requires a special attitude and certain
idealism. Many people do entertain dreams and desires about
their future. They wish for better lives and more success.
However, dreams and desires are not goals. Only a few succeed in
shaping them into meaningful, precise and well written goals.
Vague thinking about future does not qualify as goal. A goal is
not just what you want to do in life in a wishful way. A goal is
a dream with a theme, a picture with full details, and a purpose
with a definite plan. Goals
must be clear, specific, written, realistic and achievable. If
you have clear goals, you will have greater focus, confidence,
resolve and clarity.
In spiritual life goal oriented effort is not appreciated because
it is not helpful to overcome worldliness. On the spiritual path you
have to lead a life of freedom, renunciation and detachment,
letting things happen on their own, rather than making them
happen. Striving for particular goals in spiritual life is
deemed retrogressive, although in the early stages you may be inclined
to do it out of habit or to strengthen your commitment to
spiritual values. Ideally, a spiritual person flows with life,
dealing with situations as they arise. He would not worry about
his survival or success or what may happen to him the next
moment. In normal life we cannot afford to live this way, although
perhaps at times it is good to let go of things and live without
the burden of planning for the next hour.
There are four important reasons why people usually do not
prefer to keep goals in their lives. They are listed below.
1. They do not know the value and importance of goals. People
who fall into this category are those who do not have much
education, who have not been exposed to any literature or
information about goal setting or goal oriented actions. These
people would be more successful if they know about the value and
importance of goals and learn to choose appropriate goals and
work for them.
2. They do not think goals are necessary. These people have
some awareness of goals, might have read and understood the
importance of goals. But they do not like to have goals because
they do not think that goals are useful, necessary or important.
There is not enough motivation for them to think about
goals or work for them.
3. They do not have the commitment and discipline to work for
goals. People who fall in this category love their freedom and flexibility so much
that they do not want to commit themselves to the structure,
discipline, hard work and commitment which goal oriented life
demands. Besides they think that having goals and working for
them is too stressful as it makes life monotonous, boring and
mechanical.
4. They are afraid of failure. Many people do not want to
purse goals because they are afraid of failure. They do not want
to be hurt by failure or disappointments. This often results in
negative behavior and attitude towards goal setting. For some
failure is a learning opportunity. For some it is disheartening
and demeaning experience which they do not want to handle.
Therefore they do not want to take any risks by setting goals
and dealing with the uncertainity.
Having goals and some commitment to achieve them is
important. Studies done on successful people have shown that
success and goal setting go together. The most successful people
are usually those who have written goals, who know where they
want to go and in which direction they want to go. We may not
be able to predict future with certainty and we may never be sure whether we achieve our
goals or not; but we can minimize uncertainty to some extent, by
planning in advance, maximizing our potentials, working on our
strengths, working around our weaknesses, learning from our
failures and keeping ourselves in a positive frame of mind.
Suggested Further Reading
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