Goals: how to direct yourself to a better life - Part 1

Last week, I shared the four categories of signs/symptoms that help us recognise when we need to better manage ourselves. 

To manage ourselves better then, is to work on those four signs [1]

For the next several weeks, our attention will be on remedying the first sign that we need better self-management : not having written down goals that we’re working on. 

There are three parts that need to be tackled in order to better manage this symptom. The three parts are the following:

Part 1 - The goals

Part 2 - The goals must be written down 

Part 3 -  We must work on the goals

In order to have goals, we need to know what they are, therefore this post will help you better understand goals.

What are goals? 

So what are goals? Goals are the things we want to be, create, experience, or have in our future. They are our dreams made concrete. They are the way we direct ourselves to a better life. Exciting? You'd better believe it☺

When we say goals are things we want in future, we can mean 10-20 years (also known as long-term goals), 3-5 years (also known as medium-term goals) or 1 year (also known as short-term goals. 

Today, I am talking about goals that usually cover a one-year period. 

The truth is that to live a meaningful life, your one-year goal needs to be tied to your longer-term vision for your life. But the other truth is that because visions are bolder and grander, and cover where you want to have reached by the end of your life, they can be difficult to tackle at the outset. When you are just starting out, it can be helpful to secure some wins by aiming for some easier-to-achieve one-year goals to bolster your confidence and your faith in the process before tackling your vision, and breaking that down into 20 year, 10 year, and 5-year goals.

Now you know what a goal is. I'll be back next week to tackle why we need goals. Until then, enjoy your weekend and Nyame nka wo ho!

[ 1 ] Management expert Peter Drucker has a book entitled Managing Oneself. I haven’t yet read that book. However, in preparation to write this post, I read his 1999 article of the same name published by Harvard Business Review. In that article what Drucker covers is how to manage oneself at work. He assumes that workers already have the more elementary kind of self-management which I’m going to cover in the next several weeks.