“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” Bernie S. Siegel
12 years ago, I wrote goals for the first time. I wrote a career, fitness, family, and self-development goals. A year later, when I reviewed the goals, to my amazement I had achieved the majority of them. Encouraged by the success, I set even more difficult goals for the following year. 12 years later I still follow a similar process.
Setting goals became a big part of my personal and professional life. I even developed my own goal setting framework that I use with my clients.
After years of setting bigger and bigger goals, I stumbled on a realization.
The goal of the goals is not the goals at all.
The reality is that goals are just the means to something greater. What could be greater than doing an Ironman, publishing a book, or learning Mandarin?
Simply, the person/organization you become when on the journey to becoming an Ironman, publish a book, or learn Mandarin.
What does it take to achieve a goal that you can’t do right now? It usually involves starting to do new things and stopping habits that deter you from your end goal. In other words, you adopt good behaviors and put a stop to toxic ones.
One of my primary drivers in my personal and professional life is identifying and systemically removing what I deem as “toxic” behaviors and fostering “good” ones. That is what I consider growth.
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest unless there is an external force. I believe that the same applies to behaviors. A person will remain at rest unless there is an external force. For me, external forces are goals.
Big goals give me the impetus I need to change my behavior.
When I leave this world, the goals I have accomplished are not what matters to me; it’s who I have become in the process.
