The benefits of goal setting, because people who don’t set goals are unhappy, useless, hypocrites…
>>> Here’s why <<<
Setting goals is how humans match internal growth with external growth. Once you grow internally, you need to grow externally to stay satisfied and happy.
Our desires are not delivered to our door. Time to be an adult. Nobody is gonna *POOF* your life the way you want. You do it.
Your fellow humans need you. You have the ability to become great, which is better for the world. Neglecting that is bad for all of us.
Progress is integral to our well being and overall happiness with life. Being lazy about your goals always catches up to you…you can put it off for now, but you’ll burst in the end and go nuts. Continual progress is healthy, and setting goals is the way to do that.
Benny’s Story
Let’s take a look into the life of Benny. Benny is a real person, but actually a metaphor for all of us. Benny is between the ages of 18 – 65, inherited the beliefs of his childhood rearing and environment, and makes what the thinks are “good decisions” just like the rest of us.
Despite how convinced Benny is that he’s “doing the best he can” and that “things are alright” in his life, he STILL does not have everything in his life the way he wants.
- He doesn’t have the money & financial security he wants
- His relationships are not as enriching, romantically, sexually and platonically.
- He has not done anything noteworthy enough to be remembered by society
- He is constantly worrying about his health, because his body is not in the shape he’d prefer
- He doesn’t eat the food he knows he should eat
Benny’s life is controlled by his past. He falls prey to habits formed in his youth he cannot break, sees the world in terms of beliefs given by his parents that may (or may not) be true, he looks at others who have what he wants and wonders…”what would that be like?”…
Then he rationalizes his dissatisfaction: he doesn’t deserve the things he wants, he doesn’t have the right stuff, he’s not the right kind of person, nor is he qualified…etc…
But still, Benny cannot escape the basic design of human life: Growth.
Benny is growing on the inside, but his outside is not growing fast enough to match it.
Because of this mismatch, Benny is becoming more and more uncomfortable by the day.
To be as simple as possible, he has grown too large for the clothes (the current state of his life) to accommodate. Imagine all your clothing, your shoes, your house, car and your bed, all two sizes two small.
A Huge problem, with only ONE Solution…
Benefits of Goal Setting
15. Goals reinforce our Life Path
Benny has lost touch with his Life plan. A life plan is a road map that shows you the start, finish, and steps to take along your life. A life plan is crucial when you decide you want your life to mean something. The first and most comprehensive among the benefits of goal setting.
14. You stop focusing on life wasting crap
Ever feel like your soul was being sucked out through your eyeballs? Benny feels that way too. He works a job he hates, doesn’t live in the house he wants, doesn’t look the way he’d like to look. He doesn’t command the kind of respect he wants from his fellow humans.
Not only that, but he spends his waking hours doing things that have nothing to do with him, his life, or what he truly desires. The job he works isn’t fulfilling, the people he hangs out with don’t support his efforts or challenge him to become better.
Just to cope with all this bullshit, he leaves work, stops at his favorite fast food restaurant to therapy eat, speeds home for a steaming hot shower just to have some warmth in his life, and watches Netflix with a six pack…every day of the week.
He has no life plan, and he’s not setting goals to reach that end, so he’s not in charge with his life. It’s depressing, so he fills his spare time with temporary pleasures just to cope.
13. You can make clearer, better decisions
Benny is awful at making good decisions for himself. One of the benefits of goal setting is that it gives you a sense of what’s good for you and what’s not.
He has no goals in his life, so he has nothing to help him say “Will this help me reach my goals, or will it take me far away from them?”
12. You control your future, by guiding the change
There are two groups of people:
- Those who captain the ship of life
- Those who let the sea carry them wherever
Benny is in the second group. He has no life plan, no goals, and no direction. Where does a ship go with no direction? It goes anywhere the sea takes it.
Life is constantly changing, and one of the benefits of goal setting is that you are empowered to guide the changes and manifest pleasing results. If Benny doesn’t do this, he’ll end up marooned on an island somewhere…
11. You get the fire and motivation back in you!
Imagine feeling stuck. Not only that, but you’ve been stuck for so long it’s damn near driven you mad.
Actually, just think about how you feel in stand still traffic, that’s an even better depiction of what I’m trying to say.
Stand still traffic
- You’re passed the point of wondering what the hell is going on
- You’ve given up on the idea of getting anywhere anytime soon
- You’ve accepted that you’re gonna be sitting here for a while and take out your phone to just chill
After literally sitting on the freeway with your breaks on, as soon as you realize the car in front of you is moving you lose your shit and spill your drink don’t you?..
Think about how excited you feel at that point in time. Everything feels a million times better, even though you’re probably only traveling at 5 miles per hour.
Life is the same way. Exactly the same. Standing still for so long and you take one small step towards a goal might as well be the stairway to heaven, or water in the dessert.
10. You’ll start to give a sh#t about less (Peace of mind)
Very few things in life matter. Think about how old people see the world. Almost nothing phases them; nothing but the truly important stuff.
They’ve gone through life and seen so many “super important” things actually turn out to be fleeting and temporary. Their age has shown them what’s really lasting, enduring and valuable.
My grandfather used to always listen to my problems and seem so stoic and unaffected by them. “It’ll pass” he would say.
What? It will pass? I’VE GOT A SERIOUS PROBLEM HERE. But they weren’t serious. None of them were. In fact, even 15 years later, I’ve forgotten most of those HUGE issues.
One of my favorite, and quickest to see, benefits of goal setting is that you experience what would normally be HUGE PROBLEMS as mere speed bumps.
This is the point where our friend Benny’s life is starting to improve. Things aren’t so bad anymore.
9. Personal Satisfaction and loving yourself
It’s been a while since Benny decided to get his act together and change his life. He knew his life would change once he started setting goals, but he didn’t know that the benefits of goal setting go way farther than just getting the results of his actions.
One thing he’s enjoying now is increased personal satisfaction. He sees his accomplishments and he feels good about them. Feeling good about his deeds makes him confident, and it’s easier for him to feel good about himself.
Just yesterday he met his goal to finish reading 25 self improvement books. When he finished he realized that he not only knew more about himself, but he loved himself as a person. He understood others better, he understands himself better, and he was able to judge both fairly.
Now he can interact with others and enjoy the new skills he’s acquiring just by setting goals.
8. Your Sense of Purpose Returns!
After setting a few goals and accomplishing them, you realize that setting goals is not the end all be all of life. A step above setting goals, is setting meaningful goals.
Suddenly, we started to wonder if our accomplishments have any value outside our own lives. A desire to find or develop some kind of purpose finds us leading to yet another of the numerous benefits of goal setting.
7. You stop wasting your Precious resources!
Since we have a bird’s eye view of Benny’s life we can see everything he does (we’ll give him some privacy in the bathroom though).
It’s been so long since Benny wondered what would happen to his life if he started setting goals. Nothing about him looks the same.
We check up on him and see him in his favorite chair, reading through his old journals.
It’s difficult for him to believe his life ever used to be this bad. Before a year ago, he had no goals, no direction, no love for himself as a person. His life was like a black and white movie, without the romance.
Feeling a bit emotional about his transformation, he feels a sense of urgency develop inside him. It’s the first step in the final stages of the benefits of goal setting. We cannot waste time.
Sure, take your time and smell the roses, but that’s not the same was wasting time. Benny has now made a decision to
- stop caring about what others think,
- to have enough respect for himself to stay away from everything that doesn’t deserve to be in his life,
- and only accept what propels him forward at light speed.
6. You use your time better. Life is but a flicker…
That sense of urgency develops into an intense desire to spend every moment living, instead of surviving. We find that we have every opportunity and every right to pursue a life that is utterly fantastic, and we’re not about to waste another moment doing so…
5. Prioritization: more control of your life
…but there’s a problem. It’s a problem you, me, and Benny will have to overcome. There are a million options in life trying to steal our attention.
The last and most widely accepted of the benefits of goal setting is prioritization. When you know what you want, you know what to say yes and no to.
It may sound simple, but once you have taken back control of your “yes” and your “no”, you stop letting others decide for you, and start living your life!
Benefits of Goal Setting: My version
The fact is, goal setting is a necessary part of life. It’s easy to see the Benny is way better off than he was towards the beginning of our discussion. These are made up benefits of goal setting, these are scientific, proven, tested and well studied effects that come from making serious progress in your life.
Here are my own personal opinions on goal setting and the rewards we reap from taking our life progress seriously.
4. Creating the best possible version of YOU
I’ve always had this weird feeling that we all filled a unique spot in life.
Whether that’s true or not is irrelevant.
Life is most certainly about growth, just look at all the good that happens when we grow, and all the bad that happens when we don’t grow.
It’s essential that we strive for some standard of excellence in our lives and become the best we can be.
3. You’re completely honest with yourself
No greater progress happens than right after a person look themselves in the face and says: “You’re really a piece of shit right now…you chose this way of life. Now, it’s time to choose better.”
If you decided to set your own standard about what it meant to be the best YOU that YOU could possibly be, do you really think a living soul would try and stop you?
Think about the kind of power that gives you…
Your circumstances might be in part because of someone, or something else’s influence…but deciding to lay down and die is really not ideal.
2. You stop just breathing air….
Am I the only one who feels like we have an obligation to…do something? Doing something of value to the rest of the world is an obligation in my opinion. Otherwise, what are you doing? Existing?
Even the bellows of the blacksmith inhale and exhale…if that’s all you do, then you’re just consuming resources while offering nothing in return.
That’s called being the weakest link…don’t do that.
1. Take control of your life…
Nobody loves you as much as you do. No one is as concerned about your life, your wellbeing and your happiness as you are.
If you want certain results, a particular standard of living, this much adventure, that much happiness…you’re in charge of getting those results.
It’s nobody else’s job to give them to you…
Why?…
Why in the world would you rely on others to give you what you want? The charity of others isn’t a bad thing, but why in the world would you wait on it, expect it, and need it? What if it never comes? What then?
Taking full responsibility for your life means one thing: You want certain results, & it’s your job to get them.
Setting Your First Goal in a few minutes!
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