Goal setting is in every part of our lives, yet we often struggle to do it properly. As a consequence, we struggle to achieve. From very early on we set goals – ourselves, we want to achieve something good, we want to do great things, and often we want to validate ourselves. As parents, we might set our children goals and push them to do better and more. What we don’t realise is the effects a bad goal might have on us or them.In the corporate world everybody talks about SMART goal setting and things like that, yet so few people do it for themselves.
Finding the right goal and defining it in the right terms will be the difference between failure and success. Here is a simple technique that I work with. It’s great for children and adults. It’s called the excitement scale.
How excited are you about your goal? Really excited? Thrilled? In our sessions I ask children to create their excitement scale. We represent it as a 1-10 scale in which 1 is boredom and falling asleep and 10 is delirious excitement. I then ask them to fill the gaps in between with whatever representation comes to their mind (ie. 8 is fireworks going off, 5 is a clock, precise and constant, half way). Unless you’re up at a 7, 8, 9 or 10 – unless you’re really excited, chances are it will be difficult to achieve. So change your goal. Get excited. And achieve your dreams.