Goal Clarity is the Key to Success

As the year winds down, I have many thoughts to coming to mind. Most of the thoughts involve the year and how fast it flew by. Each year seems to come and go a little faster. That reminds me of the importance of my goals. As I think of my goals a few questions come to mind:

- Did I do everything I wanted to do this year?
- What challenges did I run into this year?
- What will I do next year to overcome those challenges?
- What are my goals for next year?

These questions are not rare. Most people are asking themselves these questions as December comes to a close. The questions themselves are not the significant factor here. I am more concerned with the answers.

Each year, I am able to answer these questions with certainty. Why am I able to do this? I am certain of my answers, because I have clear goals and know exactly how I did throughout the year. Most people have goals. The problem is that they are not very clear. This makes it very difficult to succeed or even to know if you are succeeding or not.

You may hear about New Year’s Resolutions. You may even see some short-term success on these ideas, but when it comes to true long-term success, you need goals. In order to have success this year and through many years in the future, you need goals.
Goals are great. Goals are what we need to succeed. If you have a goal, you are ahead of the game and you can get the year started on the right note. If you don’t have a goal at all, how can you even get started?

As you start the year, or more importantly, before you start the year, it is important to make your goal as clear as possible. The goal itself is important, but if it is not clear, you may as well not set one. If there are questions or gray areas, you will find yourself guessing and possibly even losing track of your progress.

What makes a goal clear? Well, the goal itself can help you here. When you set a goal, make sure you are specific. If you are specific, you can tell the following:

1. If you are reaching it or not
2. How well you are doing/not doing

These are important measurements. First of all, you have to know if you are reaching your goal or not. If you are reaching it, you can give yourself credit and keep going. If not, it’s time to figure out what you need to do in order to start reaching it.

The questions you ask yourself are what allow you to look closely at your goal and your progress. Let’s take a look at the questions, I asked myself about this year’s goals:

- Did I do everything I wanted to do this year?
- What challenges did I run into this year?
- What will I do next year to overcome those challenges?
- What are my goals for next year?

These questions are important. The answers are even more important. If I didn’t do something, how can I get myself on track so that I can do it? What do I need to change to make it more realistic? The next question is about the challenges I ran or am running into. This is the difference between a New Year’s resolution and a real goal. If you don’t address the challenges that you are going to face, you are pretending that they aren’t going to be there. This is not realistic and will only make it more difficult to reach your goals.

The next questions are simple. They are simple because they are nothing more than building on what I learned from the last goals. I am setting new goals, but they are not pulled out of a hat. They are not some ideas from out of the blue. They are old goals with adjustments that allow them to become my new goals.

Those new goals are as clear as they can be. This is the benefit of setting real goals, analyzing your goals and then making those adjustments. It only makes your goals clear. When you set clear goals, you know that you are reaching it. If you are not reaching it, you know what you have to do to start reaching it.

Goals can be set on any day at any time of the year. Since many of us are focused on next year, it is important to clear up your goals. It is also important to clear up the difference between resolutions and real goals. If you simply through ideas out there and try to pass them off as goals, you will have a tough year. If you set a clear objective, you can locate and navigate challenges. When you make adjustments, your goals become clearer and your success becomes not only possible but probable. It is this clarity that brings success.