Did you all have a good January? Did you make any new year’s resolutions? Were they real goals? What have you done in order to achieve them? What was your motivation? Was it fuelled by ‘I should do this or I want to do that?’ The answer to this last question says a lot about what the motivation for the goals were. Things that you feel you should be doing tend to fade away or not attract very much enthusiasm for various reasons such as obligation, duty, little or no return. It is all very well setting goals, but you also have to be acting on them. The motivation for your goals can usually be found in why you want to do them. But left unattended even your most heartfelt desires will slip away.
February is a good time to revisit these goals.
What do they mean to you? Do they still have the same meaning as when you set them? Do they impact on anyone else? Do you still picture yourself having achieved those goals? How do you feel? Does your heart beat faster, do you feel excited or not? What if you did not achieve them? How would that make you feel? These may seem like a lot of questions but your ability to get a good momentum towards achieving these goals lie somewhere in the answers.
In John Maxwell’s book “ The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” he says that good leaders live by the law of priorities, and this means that you will understand that activity does not necessarily mean accomplishment . In other words you need to focus on the right things. Let’s talk about the right things, before you scamper off and say that you are not a leader, and that this does not apply, it is a reminder that you determine what the right things are when you set your goals and determine their importance. You set your priorities on what you want to achieve.
Priorities can be determined by working out what is expected, what you will get and how you will feel about it. Once you have determined these you can then know what the right things are for you to focus on. Always focus on what is important to you.