Living the Significant Life (15 page)

The way to live a life of accomplishment, fulfillment, and success is to have lots of champions, and the way to do that is to share your goals with committed, believing people and develop powerful partnerships with them. Be their champion. Championing others is a powerful way to catapult your own success.

The Three Legs of Accomplishment

Accomplishment is a three-legged affair, and it requires all three legs to stand solid and strong. You know how strong a tripod is: it can support hundreds of times its own weight—yet take away one leg, and it will instantly topple and fall. The three legs of accomplishment are the following:

When you look at any of your accomplishments, you should be able to rate, on a scale of one to ten, what’s true about them in each of these three areas.

A ten is perfect; nothing is missing. If you rate a given area less than a ten, then add to the score itself a statement about what’s missing, which, when put in place, would make it a full-fledged ten. This will direct you toward any imaginative adjustments you need to make.

Too often people focus only on the results, but results gained without learning something or without having fun are incomplete. So is having fun without getting the result, or having fun without learning something new to help inspire you in the future. Accomplishment is all three.

A woman we knew in relationship marketing (we’ll call her Charlotte) had the goal of earning ten thousand dollars a month. Charlotte’s dream was to buy a beautiful house for herself and her family. She signed up with a dynamic company with great products and came out of the chute as though she had been shot from a cannon.

She worked long hours and ran all over the country building her business. Within four months, she was earning ten grand and then some. She hit twenty thousand dollars a month a few short months later. She could not have been more successful—or could she?

Actually, she realized that despite her financial success, she wasn’t happy at all. She had her new house, and it was beautiful—it was all she had dreamed of, but she was never there to enjoy it. Her husband experienced such a shift in their relationship that he filed for divorce. Her kids had become strangers. Charlotte had achieved her financial goal and even surpassed it, yet she was miserable.

The point is that
results alone
are not enough. Be very clear about all you want to accomplish, and be sure in your goal-setting to include all those other things you want besides money, a new house, or a new car. Especially important are goals about your relationship with God, learning and development, relationships with family and friends, and having fun.

On your list of goals, make sure to notice where each goal has possibilities for fun, where the result is clear and concrete (which means measurable; we’ll say more about that shortly), and where you will be learning new and better ways of being and doing—that is, where the goal provides for growth and development.

Remember, we are human
beings
, not human
doings
; goal- getting and accomplishment are more the result of who you are
being
than what you are
doing.

Obviously, doing, or taking action, is vital. Nevertheless, remember that results themselves are the consequence of
who you are
; your actions are the natural outcome of your beliefs, values, purpose, attitudes, fears, desires, and habits of thought. Successful people, those who accomplish their goals, are being successful within themselves before they achieve the realities of success in the external, relative world of people, places, and things.

The point here is simply this: the most profound thing you can do to bring your goals to successful manifestation is to
be
a successful person. You can deserve and drive a Mercedes in your mind before you have one in your driveway. In fact, it’s usually required. This doesn’t happen overnight. Jeff Olson, in his great book,
The Slight Edge
, describes the accomplishment process as a few simple disciplines that in the act of doing don’t seem to have any impact, but the compounding effect is powerful and brings the desired result. And he’s right. We laugh a sad laugh when we hear that motivational gurus, pastors, and other leaders “inspire” their followers to a breakthrough. Are breakthroughs possible? Of course. But they are not the result of magic. They are the result of consistent, focused action and all of the principles we write and speak about all over the world.

Let’s get back to the specifics of goal setting and goal getting. Setting and getting goals follow certain rules.

Goal-Setting Specifics

Rule #1: Your goals must
be concrete and have measurable results.

Wishy-washy goals aren’t real goals. Airy-fairy goals aren’t, either. Wishes and dreams and it-seemed-good-at-the-time ideas aren’t goals at all.

Goals are solid and clear, and they can be measured and expressed in concrete terms. “I’m going to be a lawyer” is more of a dream than a goal. “I’m going to graduate from law school” or “I’m going to get my law degree” is quite different. Do you see how the second and third statements are more measurable, more concrete as a goal?
“I’m going to get my law degree by June 30, 1995” is even more so.

It’s really quite simple: if it can’t be measured, it’s not a goal.

“I’m going to be thin and trim.” Really? How thin? How much will you weigh? How many inches will you be around the waist? Around the hips? Be specific with your goals. Clear and concrete goals have power. Foggy goals are for people who aren’t willing to lay it on the line. If you have a vague, unspecified goal, nobody can say you failed when you don’t reach it. Have courage. State powerful goals you can measure.

Rule #2: Set the goals you really want.

Don’t make “process goals”; by this we mean don’t make goals that are really only steps along the way to a goal. Of course, all goals always lead to new goals, but make your goals results that you actually want to achieve, not ingredients in the mix or part of the process. Go for the ultimate result you have in mind.

Having money, for example, is not a powerful or effective goal. Recall, from our discussion of values, this question: Why do you want the money? What do you want it for? Like digging down to the core of essential values, go to the core of a goal. That’s the goal to write down.

Rule #3: Give your
goals an ETA.

ETA
means estimated time of arrival, what some people call a “by when.” This is another instance in which specificity inspires. If there’s no time frame, there’s no reality. Until you assert your goal as an expected result by such-and-such a date, it’s a wish, not a goal. (As a famous advertisement for a still-prosperous savings and loan company once said, “Wishing won’t do it—saving will.”)

Rule #4: State your goals as positive, present-tense accomplishments, complete with feelings.

Avoid expressing your goals as negatives or as desires sometime off in the future. Include an emotional payoff to supercharge your goal.

Let’s take the example “I will quit smoking.” Instead, you might state it this way: “I am living smoke-free—and I feel fantastic!”

Which of these two expressions stirs up some passion? Which of those two seems most likely to succeed?

Don’t forget the time frame. “So by when will you be feeling great because you’re smoke-free?”

“April 1, this year.”

“Great!”

The more compelling your goals and the more passion they call forth from you, the more likely it is that you will hold them up and champion them—and that others will, too.

Working with Goals

Once you’ve established your goals, you’ll need to work with them to bring them into being. One reason to write goals down is that this brings them closer to reality. Having an inspiration or imaginative idea, giving it focused thought, and then writing it down are all powerful steps in the success process. Do you see how each step is more concrete, more “real,” than the one before?

Once your goals are written down, read them every day. If you want to, say them out loud as you read them. If you’ve designed your goals as we suggested—positive statements complete with feelings and a time frame—then your goals are powerful statements, and saying them aloud adds to their reality.

Have both short-term and long-term goals. Don’t be afraid to use your imagination. Let your goals stand as real possibilities: not just a better version of the same old thing, but brand-new conditions and realities you’ve never accomplished before.

Remember, only when you aspire to excellence in your life can you be free from mediocrity. Because one of your goals must be constant growth and improvement, always ask yourself these questions: What can I do differently? What can I do better? What can I do best?

One key to knowing if your goal is on track is to check whether the goal makes you a little nervous. If your goal makes you sweat a bit, then the chances are that it’s a really good goal—one that will stretch you and cause you to learn new and different skills as you go through the process of accomplishing it.

You’ve heard the term
movers and shakers.
Here’s what that phrase means to us: people who are really moving are always shaking a little. Great goals, big goals, bring out the best in people.

It’s been said that if you want to clear the fence when you’re jumping over it and you aim for exactly that, you might make it and you might not. But if you shoot for the moon, no matter what, you’re bound to clear the treetops. The bigger your goals, the better.

Remember the stretched rubber band? The bigger your goal, the more natural tension there is available to inspire you to bring it into existence.

Where the Getting Gets Good

Setting goals is one thing. Getting your goals is another. Effective goal-getting involves two simple steps:

Reverse goal-setting is simple. Look at your goal as a completed, present-tense accomplishment, and then ask yourself, “What had to happen just before that was achieved?” Write down your answer.

Now ask the question again about the specific accomplishment you just wrote down, and write
that
answer down. Then do it again, and keep doing it until you end up right where you are now, at your starting place. When you do this, what you’ll have is a written plan that breaks down your goal into a series of doable steps. Through reverse goal-setting, even the most ambitious goal can be broken down into a series of smaller, progressive goals.

Once you have your goal laid out on paper in front of you in a sequence of subgoals, you can then design a strategy of actions to take. We recommend consistent focused action. Looking at your goal and at all the subgoals that have to be achieved to accomplish it, you’ll be able to see what one thing you could focus on and do consistently that would bring you your goal.