Weekly Challenge – Setting 5-Year Goals

The Challenge:

This week you must identify and write down three (3) separate goals you would like to accomplish in the next five-years.One of these five-year goals MUST be related to your long-term professional goal that most of you identified last week.The other two goals may be about anything you choose (i.e. family, new home, relationships, etc.). This next step is the most challenging part of this task.Share your five-year goals with 2 people that are close to you.

This task is worth 30-points on your scorecards.

Thought Provoking Questions:

Were you afraid to share your goals with others? If so, why do you think that was?

The Lesson:

This task walks us through two important actions. First, we continue to work through a great way to set goals by starting with the long-term vision and working our way back to the present. Second, this task has the added challenge of informing others of our goals. You see, informing others of our intentions will formalize our goals in our mind and in the mind of others. Often, we do not let other people know of our goals so that in the event we do not achieve them we will not feel quite as badly. The problem with this logic is that in NOT sharing our goals with those close to us, we deny ourselves of the encouragement that those people can bring to us. Wear your goals and intentions on your sleeve, be proud of what you want and be open to the assistance from others.

Subsequently, if we share our goals with others, we will greatly increase the odds that we will commit to achieving them. Vocalizing, sharing and believing in our goals in a public fashion will give us that subtle internal encouragement to stick to it. This is also why it is very important that your goals are well thought out and truly things you want to accomplish. It is not good for your confidence to have a million ideas but no desire to take action. People will doubt you, and more severely, you will begin to doubt yourself. Take goal setting serious enough that in each concrete goal you identify, be proud enough to share it with others.

“There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.” – George Shinn