On Goals and Successes

Greetings,

The following entry in this blog is sort of a way of explanation. A couple of days ago I made a post on Facebook and Google+. I will admit that I was a little short tempered at the time and a little unimpressed. So I will present the post below and then explain a little more of what I meant with regard to that expression. The post was as follows:

Just a short bitch... On Goals and Successes
1. Figure out what you want to do.
2. Set your own goals and go toward them.
3. Do not compare your successes to others as it is not a relevant reference for *your* goals.
4. Even if these goals do not yield "real world" results your goals are just as important as peoples' goals which do.
5. Be brave enough to evaluate your own level of work truthfully as you have only one person to blame if you are not getting there.
Sorry, I just needed to get this out of my system.

As I stated, I was unimpressed at the time and now I have some time to look back at what I wrote and give a little more explanation as to what I meant by my five step plan. More to the point I can explain a little about what I have been doing with regard to my own.

1. Figure out what you want to do
We all tend to muddle through life a little at least. I suspect that even with the most focused of minds there are times where the targets are a little blurry. This step is about regaining the focus and figuring out what you want to do with yourself. This lays the foundation for the following steps, and in some ways is one of the most important steps. If you don't know what you want to do it is difficult to set goals for yourself. An important point here is that this target can be small or large, near or far. This is a personal journey.

With regard to this, this is for people who want focus. There are those of us who are quite happy to coast through life. This is fine. This is for when the coasting stops in their case. There are those of us who devote our time to other people all of our time. This is for when they decide that they want to do something for themselves, whether or not this assists others or not. As I have stated, this is a personal journey.

2. Set your own goals and work toward them.
This follows on nicely from the last one. Once you figure out where you want to be, you need to set goals in order to get there. You need short-term goals and long-term goals. Once you have the goals you need to work toward them. Seems relatively simple really, however this can be tricky. If all the goals are long-distance or long-term it will be difficult to see how to get there. Remember that you also need short-term goals as well.

The second part of this is can be a difficult thing. People can set goals but if they do nothing afterward they should not be surprised that they cannot get there. Being a personal journey these goals should not be dependent on other people only ourselves. These are goals for yourself. Do not hinge them on the success of someone else, only your own successes. You need to work toward the goals.

3. Do not compare your successes to others as it is not a relevant reference for your goals.
Even when you are on a similar path, comparing your successes to another's is irrelevant. So a person achieves a goal that you were going for, this does not mean that you should not also go toward it still. So a fellow student out-performs you, this does not reference your goals as theirs are not yours. Your goals are yours to achieve, you are the only person who is relevant in achieving them.

Even more importantly, your goals may be smaller than their goals. This is nothing to be ashamed of. You do what you can. If your goals are small, there will be more of them. It is important that these small goals build to a bigger goal. You need to achieve your goals for yourself.

4. Even if these goals do not yield "real world" results your goals are just as important as people's goals which do.
Everyone likes to hear of goals which are achieved. We hear them on the news, "Professor Smith has found a cure to a disease.", "Joe Blogs has won gold at the Olympics" and so forth. I do not expect that any of the goals which I have achieved or will achieve will ever be noticed in this form. This does not bother me in the least.

Goals which get "real world" acclaim are important, but it does not mean that all goals need to be like this. Every goal is important at least at a personal level for the individual who achieves them. This success is more important than any amount of acclaim which a person gets from the outside. I suppose I need to give a little bit of personal detail here.

I have now been fencing in some form for 20 years. This is an achievement in itself. I have been doing Renaissance martial arts for almost as long with a medieval and Renaissance recreation society for almost as long. In that time I have risen to the top levels in that society. This is an achievement which took at least 10 years out of that 20 year stretch. I have been teaching Renaissance martial arts for some time as well and have had students also raise themselves to the high levels with my assistance. In the "real world" this does not mean much, but it is an achievement that I am proud of. These are my goals, they are important to me, and that is all they need to be important to.

5. Be brave enough to evaluate your own level of work truthfully as you have only one person to blame if you are not getting there.
Self-evaluation is important and is also one of the hardest things. Step 5 is all about being truthful about the amount of work you have put in in order to get your goals. This is about not blaming others for your own lack of success. The only person who can achieve your goals is you, and thus you are the only person who can put in the work to get there.

We need to evaluate our own progress toward our goals and find the reasons for why we are not getting there. In some instances it is because the goal is too far to evaluate the success. In some instances it is because the goal is a bit too big for what we are capable at that point in time. In some instances circumstances have made the situation not appropriate for that goal at that point in time. However we also have to admit that sometimes it is because we have not put in as much work as we should have. In all these instances we have to be honest and find out the real reasons.

Most Important
Most important of all, they are your goals, you have to set them, and you have to work toward them. This is one of those times where people can help you toward your goal but the work is going to have to primarily be done by you. Be honest in your evaluation of your goals and also your efforts toward your goals. Both of these are important.

Cheers,

Henry.