Goals: ambitious or achievable?
Pay attention to the goals you set as they determine the shape of your future. It can be either full of motivating challenges or simple, ordinary goals.
I would like to show you how you can fully use your potential by overthrowing commonly known rule about setting goals - “ambitious, but achievable”.
When I started this blog, it seemed impossible to gain so many readers in such short time. It’s been a year since I have started writing articles. My goal was to be among leading pages in Poland that were similar to mine. Thanks to that the idea of personal growth was supposed to attract as many people as possible. And what sounded like an absurd back then is a reality now.
I am extraordinarily happy because the number of readers is still growing.
Most people (including me) evaluate their abilities much lower than they really are at the moment of setting goals. I created a diagram which you can see below to show you what I mean. Let’s assume that when you plan your future, you evaluate your abilities at 4 on 1-10 scale. Most people would set their goal at 3 so they are sure they can achieve it. What a waste of their true capabilities!
To be honest, things that you can really accomplish can be evaluated much higher. So let’s assume that your real abilities can be evaluated as 7 in the scale above. When you set your goal at 7 it is very possible that you will achieve it. Even if you won’t, I am sure that you will get closer to your aim, let’s say at 6. And that is because you will try as hard as you can and will be more motivated.
Many times in my life I set my goals much higher than I thought I can. And to my surprise, I managed to achieve them almost every time.
Everytime you set a goal which is achievable, you waste your potential.
Think about it. Have you ever done something much better than you have expected? Most people have that experience. The question is “How do you rate your abilities?” Regardless of the number you choose, you can do much more, I guarantee you.
When you set a goal, thinking that it is achievable, then the goal is too small. Sure, you are convinced that you will accomplish it. One of my readers wrote a comment one day as it follows: “Most people don’t achieve success not because they aim too high and miss it. Most people don’t achieve success because they aim too low and reach it.” Start aiming higher.
When you set a goal and you see that reaching it will be simple, you won’t get motivational kick, which makes you act. Ambitious goals motivate much stronger. If the goal is a great challenge, then you want to face up to it. Achieving great goal is an extremely exciting vision which creates resources of motivation.
Ironically, we achieve those big, out-of-our-league goals much more often than those small ones.
That’s because they don’t motivate as strong as the big ones. So sometimes you don’t even start working on them. In contrast, ambitious goals are those that force you to act immediately and start planning things.
Of course I don’t mean goals that are absolulety impossible to reach. What I mean is that when you set your an achievable goal, you should double it. And then double it again. Then write it down. It is important to write down your goals according to certain rules. Thanks to that they will be more influential.
Set great goals and you will achieve great things. Use your abilities to the maximum. You will see that you can do a lot more than you could ever imagine. Just try it. Start setting ambitious goals and see what happens!