Intundla Conference Venue is the perfect getaway for business teams to meet and set goals for the year ahead. Only 55 minutes from OR Tambo / Johannesburg and 30 minutes from Pretoria, close enough to your office but far enough to instil that “out of office” feeling where you can focus on business without any distractions.
Why do you need goals?
“My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them.” – Sir Richard Branson
This year you’ve decided you want things to be different, you want things to change. But what does it take to change, make things different in your life? The one thing that will help you make a change in any area of your life is to set personal goals. Most of us wander through life without goals. And most of what we do on a day-to-day basis won’t make a difference in a week, a month and most certainly 10 years down the line.
Goals give us hope. You can live for a couple of days without food, a day or so without water, minutes without air but only seconds without hope.
There was a study done on all the Holocaust survivors of World War II. These people lived in death camps. Literally surrounded by death and the smell of death all the time. What made the people who survived different from the ones that didn’t? The study concluded that the one thing all the survivors had in common was that they had something to look forward to, something to hope for.
If you don’t have a goal for something then nothing will change. If you aim at nothing you’re going to hit it! For example if you don’t have a goal for your health or fitness for this year then it’ll probably go backwards, at most stay the same. If you don’t have goals for your finances, your business, your relationships, etc. Then your goal by default is to stay the same, to stay where you are. Or to go on the slippery slide of decline.
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But how do you reach your goals?
Because something always happens to get in the way. Not so?
The one thing you need to know is that life is hard and life is tough. Stuff happens. But life is not supposed to be all easy. Life is a course in character development.
What do you do when you’re going through difficulties? You keep going! You certainly don’t want to stop and stay there and have a tea party! And eventually you get out of it – you get through it.
There once was a frog that fell into a pothole. It was one of those really deep potholes and he was stuck. A rabbit came past and the frog was yelling for help. The rabbit tried to help but to no avail, the frog was still stuck. Later a tortoise came past and also tried to help but couldn’t. Much later that day the frog caught up with his friends the rabbit and the tortoise and they asked him: “How did you get out?” “Well a huge truck came towards me with big fat wheels.” “But how did you get out?” they said. The frog answered: “I just HAD to!”
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What kind of goals are good Goals?
Not all goals are good. How do you know which goals are good and which not?
Good goals are goals that are motivated by love versus goals that are motivated by fear, guilt, ego, jealousy, envy, greed, etc. etc.
What happens when we set goals?
There are 4 main things that happen to you as a person when you start setting goals and persevere until you reach them.
1. Goal setting is a discipline
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
Very similar to other types of discipline like exercising, reading, etc.
You can waste your life, spend your life or invest your life – You get 3 kinds of people – people who make things happen, people who watch things happen and people who have no idea what’s happened! Goals keep you moving forward when you feel like giving up. They’re like magnets that draw you forward. And long term goals keep you from being discouraged by short term setbacks.
2. Goals focus your energy
Energy that is not focussed is diffused and it doesn’t have much power.
We all know how busy life is. The good news is that not everything in life is worth doing in the first place so you shouldn’t do everything! This is good because you don’t have time for everything. Do you agree with that?
Be careful of second rate causes because they can betray you! Is what you’re doing right now going to matter next week, next month, next year? There is a big difference between what is urgent and what is important. And what is urgent is almost never that important! So often the urgent pushes the important out of the way. Say for instance your goal this year is that you want to exercise more. But then something urgent happens and it gets pushed aside.
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3. Goals build your character
When you are striving for a goal you will most certainly hit obstacles. Do you agree? It is during this time while you are fighting for your goal and during adversity and in that process of struggle that your character develops.
4. Goals stretch your faith
Dreams don’t do anything unless you get to work. You get dreams, resolutions and then you get Goals. A Goal is a dream with a deadline. The goals you need to set are the goals that will require faith to accomplish. Goals that are set in FAITH. Those are the goals worth fighting for! And those goals tend to get fulfilled earlier than you thought they would.
What is a goal set in F.A.I.T.H.
Focused
It’s specific, something you can measure.
Attainable
It’s possible and practical. If you set an unrealistic goal, you won’t accomplish it.
Individual
It’s personal. You can’t set goals for other people. You have ownership over your own goals, not someone else’s.
Trackable
Your goals need a deadline on it. Without a date on it, it’s not a goal.
Heartfelt
Never set a goal you’re not passionate about, because you will never accomplish it without the desire to do so.
