Priorities..Goals..Achievements

I can??™t claim myself to be a hugely successful person by any stretch of imagination. But whatever success(big or small) I have today, I??™m sure I could have gone up much higher if only I applied myself well on certain occasions. When I was a real nobody, I was always obsessed with thoughts of what I should have achieved but could not.

???Achievable??™ Goals

The failure to meet the expectations of myself and my dear ones always loomed large over me. It led to self-criticism, loss of self-esteem to a large extent.

Whatever little I could manage to achieve was often overshadowed by what I couldn??™t. It was at this time I decided to set only a few ???achievable??™ goals for myself. Although success was not guaranteed in all such efforts, the decision took a lot of burden off me.

The fear and disappointment of failure receded to a large extent.

The Fewer goals, The Better It Is

You may have heard the power of chunking. I also started getting results by setting for myself fewer goals in number. In this way, I could concentrate more on each of them in the absence of any confusion. Believe me, my success rate increased in quick time. And, I also did not forget to reward myself with a less demanding job after the day??™s main assignments were over.

I found having a daily priority list of things to be done on a given day highly useful.

Long-Term and Short-Term Goals

Although my parents often told me to nurture long-term goals when I was growing up, I later found the idea a bit impractical. Long-term objectives, I found, are so far away that it really becomes tough to sustain their progress. Instead it is much more convenient to aim for short-term goals and then concentrate on them. In fact, short-term goals are your pathway to long-term goals.

One of my friends advised me to treat my goals as mileposts rather than a destination. It was a brilliant idea as I could celebrate each step, realizing that I??™m getting closer to my dream. With the passage of time, I learnt yet another lesson. Getting over early hesitation, I gradually learnt to modify my goals when my instincts told me to do so.

I realized there was no use repeating the same things over and over again expecting better results. Someone somewhere termed it as “insanity”

Flexibility

I realized the futility of adopting a rigid posture when the situation demanded a little flexibility on my part. I also understood the value of giving myself and others, credit and recognition for whatever small achievements we made(of course others came first in the order).

It helped us, especially after the amount of hard work we had put in for every single victory. Last but not the least, I also learnt the art of self-criticism, but only in a constructive way. I found positive thoughts a suitable tonic for all my efforts.

I??™m sure many of you have been in a position in which I was sometime ago. I??™m sure you won??™t do yourself any harm if you follow what I did to achieve my goals.

Love to hear your thoughts..

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1 thought on “Priorities..Goals..Achievements”

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    Srini, oh, my, I can relate to where you used to be. Some of what was slowing me down so much was some undiagnosed health issues. Now that those are being addressed, I find myself overwhelmed by the big goals, so the idea of chunking really appeals to me. I have been very self-critical and it is a double whammy – being hard on my self is bad enough, but I believe our thoughts and words have power. Once I realized the words I was speaking to myself, I have gradually been turning them to a more gentle voice. I have also been known to add something I’ve accomplished to my “To Do” list simply for the satisfaction of crossing it off! Another thing I do to track my progress, is keep notes on what I do each day. Partly because my memory is not what it used to be and partly so I can look over notes from the past and celebrate my progress. I really am accomplishing more than it feels like I am!

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