Aim For the Duck & Reach Your Goals

In his audio recording titled "Goals," personal growth guru Zig Ziglar rhetorically asks us how a blindfolded person (who has just been spun around) is supposed to hit a target if he cannot even see it. To expect this person to hit the mark when he doesn't even know where the target is is unreasonable. And yet, he points out, this is how many of us live our lives: without specific goals, without a clear sense of direction.

"How can you hit a target you don't even have?," Ziglar asks us. If you want to shoot the duck, he goes on (you replace the duck with whatever goals you have, whether it be losing weight, becoming fit, finding a meaningful career, writing a book...the list goes on), you have to aim at the bird. Shooting into the air is likely to get you nowhere.

"You cannot make it as a wandering generality. You must become a meaningful specific." There was something about these words that really hit the point home for me:

If we are to be successful, we must have goals and a plan that will take us where we want to go.

The following set of questions Ziglar poses is meant to help us spell out our goals as well as determine an action plan for reaching them. Over and over, he stresses the importance of writing down our goals so as to better define them and make them more concrete.

Below are Ziglar's questions. I invite you to take a moment to reflect on them and write down your answers:

• Have you got your targets? (In other words, what do you want to achieve?)
• Have you written them down?
• Have you spelled out the details of WHY you want to reach those goals in the first place?
• Have you identified the obstacles you have to overcome in order to get there?
• Have you spelled out what you need to know to reach your goals?
• Have you identified the people, the group, the organizations you need to work with in order to get there?
• Have you devised a specific plan of action in order to get there?
• Have you put a date on it?
  

Boys and Girls, I spent many hours today thinking about my goals in both my personal and professional life. I am ready to stop wasting time and put my plan into productive action.

Are you?

Bring it!

Barbie, PhD

You can browse and purchase hundreds of personal growth recordings at www.nightingale.com