Football is the most popular sport in Nigeria, the excitement, suspense, and intrigue it brings are second to none, especially when the Super Eagles play and triumph over rivals or big teams; Atlanta ‘96 and the exploits of Kanu Nwankwo comes to mind in the semi-final game against Brazil, I remember how Nigerians took to the streets forgetting differences at that instant to celebrate that golden goal our number “4” jersey netted in. Great Memories.
But, imagine the game of football without a “Goal Post”, just imagine. There will be no purpose to the game, no endpoint to the field play, the passes, the dribbles, and no means to determine who won the game, the players would just be running around the pitch for the game period, and end without a result.
You see how ridiculous this sounds, “A Football Match of 90 Minutes without a Goal Post”, believe it or not, it is the same thing as running through a year (365 days) without goals!
You will be caught in an unending loop of unproductivity, a directionless life, like a boat at sea without sail tossed to and from by the tides! Imagine such a life, and yet this is the standard for many.
A bigger tragedy is those who set goals without the know-how or commitment to achieve them. Take for instance you had set goals in 2023 and you didn’t achieve any or achieved some, the goals left unachieved would be carried over into 2024, this literally means you are stuck in 2023 while in 2024, it is the same thing as repeating a class. Imagine, if this happens again in 2024, this is exactly how people end up being stagnant in life and they blame their village people. Oga, your village people have their own problems in these times, I don’t think they have your time like that.
I painted a vivid picture just for you to see why you must know how to set goals, set and achieve them. Here is a litmus test as promised to check those goals.
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- What’s the why? Why is that goal important? You need a buy-in into a goal for you to have the daily drive to pursue that goal, there must be an emotional connection.
- Challenging but realistic, if your goal doesn’t push you out of your comfort zone, then it is not a goal, but it should not push you into depression and frustration.
- Make the goal specific, If you say “My goal this year is to make sales”, this is not a goal. But when you say, “My goal is to make a total sale of three hundred and fifty million naira and be the highest in sales in my group”, the first part of this statement is specific, and the second part takes care of the “why”, the emotional connection.
- Have Micro goals; actionable daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly steps, this helps you focus on the process that will yield the result, if you are goal is not specific then it cannot be broken down into micro-goals and if it can’t be broken down then it can’t be measured, you won’t be able to check your progress.
- Have an accountability circle, a hack to achieving your goals is to have someone or a group of people whom you can tell your goals and they hold you accountable, those who can look you in the face and tell you the hard truth. When building discipline towards achieving goals you need such people.
- Anticipate obstacles, to have a belief that because you have set goals everything will move smoothly is to be grossly immature. You must expect obstacles and proffer actionable solutions. Achieving goals is a two-pronged system, while you push for the goals you also work to beat the obstacles which can be external or internal, but from my experience internal obstacles, that is challenges that have to do with you as a person are the most prevalent.
- Lastly, be flexible, as you monitor your goals, you may want to change one or two, remember “the plan can change as long as the purpose remains the same”.
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I think I was blunt today in my writing, it was deliberate to jolt into acting on goal setting. As a businessperson ensure one of the goals you set for next year is to acquire new knowledge, I’ll tell you why this is important next week.
