OK – I’m back to elaborate more on the dangers of having dates on your goals…
Let’s say at the beginning of September, you have a dated goal that sounds like this, “I’m going to sell $2,000 worth of product by September 30th”. Sounds great, right? But, if you’ve only sold $600 at the end of two weeks, there’s a problem because you’re not on pace to achieve your goal. In this situation, there are 4 options.
Option #1: Keep going full speed ahead, and finish the month wherever you’re going to finish it, focusing on and appreciating what you accomplished instead of beating yourself up for how far you fell short.
Most people will not choose this one because it doesn’t feel good to fall short of your goal, especially when you tried really hard to get it. So, as an emotional defense mechanism, to stay safe, people usually pick one of these “outs”…
Option #2: Pretend your goal was really only $1,000. Since you’re already over half way there, that seems like a safe alternative, one that you’re likely to get.
Option #3: Pretend your goal was $2,000 by the end of October, not September. You push the date back so you’ll have twice the time to make it happen.
Option #4: Pretend you never set the goal in the first place.
Options 2-4 are terrible precedents to set in your goal getting efforts. Once created, these behaviors will no doubt be duplicated and you’ll just be repeating the whole thing over and over again.
So what’s the answer? Throw away all your calendars, watches and datebooks, never again paying attention to any dates ever again? Not quite.
Dates are important for one main reason – in the beginning phase of goal getting, you must create a plan of action that should lead to the results you want, and in the timeframe you want them.
There’s one more part to this, and it’s crucial to your success. So read the next article to find out more!
