Why do we need to have goals, do they have any effect on what we do, or are they just management mumbo jumbo? In our podcast Paul asks Richard, what is the point of goals?
It might feel like a bit of a Nineties throwback to sit and write down your goals but, as we discuss in our podcast, there’s a reason why putting something down on paper still works.
Goal writing is a useful exercise for lots of reasons. Firstly, it channels our motivation and forces us to think carefully about what’s important to us. In the podcast, Richard and Paul talk about how it’s important to identify not just what you want to achieve but also why.
Richard discusses the process of goal writing and how it can help us prioritise. Setting goals and working out why they’re important to us activates our conscious mind and writing them down can help them seep into the subconscious, which means we start to recognise thoughts and actions that contribute towards our goals, even when we are not actively thinking about them.
So what happens when we’re given a goal that we don’t want? It happens all the time in the workplace but if it’s something we don’t want to do, or don’t feel is important, it may never happen. For a goal to be achievable, we need to believe in it.
What if we write down a bad goal and head off in the wrong direction, channelling your energy and motivation towards it? Paul’s got some useful advice on this too and explains how the process of writing goals helps us focus our thoughts and refine our wish list.
How do we make a start? If we have a blank sheet of paper and no goals, where do we begin? As Paul explains, we all have goals, it’s just that they may simply be ideas at the moment that need a bit of development. On a personal level you might know you want to go on holiday next year but you haven’t thought about the detail such as where you’ll go or when.
We all have goals in our head, we just need to get them down on paper and make them happen.
The Thinking Focus: The Question Is podcast series is available to download on ITunes.