“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” said Alice.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where ..” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
” .. so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
– From the book “Alice in Wonderland”
Much has been written about the importance of Goal setting. Especially about the need to clearly spell out what it is that we want, when do we want that and so on.
We all have personal goals, health goals, family goals and professional goals. Needless to add, a person with a clearly articulated goal is more likely to achieve it than someone whose goal is vague. And even surely setting a goal somewhat vaguely is better than not setting a goal at all! (Unless, like Alice, you just want to go ‘SOMEWHERE’.)
If you examine closely, most of the goals we set and we see other people chasing fall into two broad categories:
1) HAVE goals:
As the name suggests these goals define what we want to HAVE.
I want a promotion in April.
I want a new car by next year.
I want lower blood sugar levels.
I want to have half a million dollars in my bank account by 2020.
HAVE goals are very easy of visualize. They are very clear and most of the time easy to quantify.
2) DO goals:
These goals state what we intend to DO differently from what we are currently doing.
I want to spend more time with my family on weekends.
I want to finish my work by 6 pm and carry none of it home.
I want to listen more to my wife. (tough one, eh?)
I want to stop complaining about my office colleagues (or family members, traffic jams, the government, neighbour’s dog.. whatever).
Often HAVE goals are linked to DO goals.
I want 20% sales growth in the next quarter. (HAVE goal)
I will make 30% more sales calls to prospects every week for the rest of this quarter. (DO goal)
It’s simple.
You want to HAVE something? You better DO something about it.
And you better DO what you have not done before if you want to HAVE something you haven’t had before.
More often than not, we miss out on setting a very important goal, which to me is the mother of all goals.
It’s called the ‘BE goal.’
A BE goal is about who you want to BE or who you want to BECOME.
And I’m not talking about an “I want to BECOME the CEO in the next 5 years” kind of a goal. That’s a HAVE goal, not a BE goal.
A BE goal is your commitment to change who you ARE at your core. It shows an intention to change your thinking, your attitude, your nature.
Examples of BE goals:
I want to BE a more confident and fearless person.
I want to BE a more loving and understanding parent.
I want to BE the most amazing person you ever met.
I want to BE happy and carefree.
I want to BE calm and patient at all times.
In my 6 years of coaching various clients, I have come to the conclusion that BE goals are the most important goals we need to set. BE goals are simple but not easy to achieve.
The simple part is that BE goals are not dependent on external factors. Their accomplishment is dependent on how you evolve your own thinking and how you change your own attitude. Once you BECOME that ‘calm and patient’ person, you will BE calm and patient irrespective of how much hell breaks loose around you!
BE goals on the other hand are not easy to achieve because it takes a lot of internal wiring to change. We have to reprogram ourselves, undo our past conditioning. Not surprisingly, a lot of my coaching work revolves around my clients working on their BE goals first and then moving on to their DO and HAVE goals.
There is something unsaid in a BE goal. And that is the CHOICE you make to BE whoever you want to BE. What you are really saying is that you CHOOSE to be calm and patient from now on. What is implied is that you were NOT always making that choice till now. It’s very empowering to look at it that way.
When you continue making that choice every time the situation demands, there will be a time when you will BE calm and patient without you having to CONSCIOUSLY make that choice. That will be the time when being calm and patient will happen naturally and sub-consciously. And that’s when you can say that you have achieved your BE goal.
We saw earlier how HAVE and DO goals are linked. Here’s how BE goals are linked to both of them:
You want to HAVE something, you must DO something.
You want to DO something, you must BECOME the kind of person for whom DOING becomes easy.
Often we get stuck at DOING something, even if we’re very clear about our DO goals.
We decide to GO for a walk every morning and we don’t.
We don’t give up on our DO goals. The goal stays, but we just don’t DO anything about it.
Why? Because we will GO for a walk every morning, only if we choose to BE health-conscious.
We will stop complaining about our folks at home, only if we choose to BE accepting and flexible.
Once we BECOME the kind of person we want to BECOME, DOING happens easily and effortlessly.
Once the DOING happens, it’s a matter of time before we see results.
BE comes before DO. Do comes before HAVE.
It’s BE-DO-HAVE.
Very often, many of us live our lives the opposite way.
HAVE-DO-BE!
“Once I get (HAVE) a good salary and a good work environment,
then I’ll work hard (DO), I’ll give all I’ve got,
and then I’ll BE known as a star performer who’s committed, confident and creative.”
NO!
You have to first BE a star performer in your mind.
You first have to BE committed, BE confident, BE creative or whatever else you need to BE to do your job well.
Then you put your attitude into action. You DO your job well, you demonstrate your commitment by showing up, by sticking to deadlines.
Because you ARE confident, you take on difficult projects others aren’t willing to take up.
As a result of all this, the company says,
“Well done my friend.
You can HAVE your bonus. You earned it.
You can HAVE the corner office. You deserve it.”
That’s proof that if you can BE it, you can SEE it.
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