Got A Goal? Let Your Goal Determine Your Approach

What are you striving for?  How are you planning to get there?  Is it important for you to hit what you aim at?  How can you ensure that when you go after a goal that you will achieve it?

To accomplish any goal, you must stack the odds of success in your favor.  You have to seize every advantage and neutralize or eliminate every obstacle.  One way to do this is to let your goal determine how you will accomplish it.

Your goal must dictate the strategy you use to accomplish it.

Most people are accustomed to planning their goals and dreams in a linear or sequential fashion.  We tend to approach our goals in a lock-step manner that restricts our creativity and limits our ability to make quantum leaps towards accomplishing them.

A good illustration of what happens when you allow your goal to determine your approach would be the following – assume that you have booked a flight from New York to Chicago for a business meeting you have scheduled for the following day.

Before the airplane takes off, the target or destination is already set in the form of flight plans and schedules. The route is pre-selected, the fuel tanks are full, and trained pilots are prepared to operate the aircraft.  How did all of these important elements come together at the right time for you to be flown from one place to another?

The fact that you selected Chicago as your target or destination is critical to understanding how the plan came together at the right time.  Why? Because…in order to go anywhere, you must know where you are going, and once you have determined where you are going, getting there is just a matter of developing and implementing a detailed plan.  Once the target or destination is selected numerous systems, processes, and procedures go into action to ensure that the selected destination is reached.

If you were scheduled to fly from New York to Miami, the same set of systems, processes, and procedures would be initiated; however, your target or destination is different.  You would probably travel by a different route; you may get a different set of pilots, and the amount of fuel you use will probably increase because of the increased distance.  The key point here is that the target dictates the route, flight plan, speed, and altitude the plane will take to reach your destination.

Think about any recent goals that you have set out to accomplish.  Did your target or goal dictate the strategy or plans that you used to accomplish it or did you haphazardly move toward your goal without a clear plan in mind?

Did you develop a plan without considering your target and how it can help you to develop your approach?  Your target helps you to determine the:

•Strategies you select

•Plans you develop

•Resources you require

•Coordination you initiate

•Actions you take

Here are a few questions to help you think about how to use your target to determine your strategy or approach.

Ask yourself:

•What can I do right now to position myself for success in the future?

•Where do I want to be in 3, 5, and 10 years?

•How do I get “there” from “here?”

•What comes next?

Remember, when you let your goal determine your approach you are increasing your chances of successfully accomplishing your goal.