Welcome to Tony Richards Messages

28 Setting Goals Pt4

Welcome to this week’s message on leadership, self-confidence, and how to feel good about yourself everyday as you interact with people, in safety and comfort, at home and work.

Last week’s message was about ‘Writing a Vision Statement’.
This was the Critical Step that linked the first three Steps together, to ensure you never lose sight of your real value as an individual, and also assisted to display that value to everyone else you come into contact with.
If you wish to be reminded of that message, it is also available back on the message page.

This week’s message is about Critical Step 4 Setting Goals.
This Step will assist you to feel the benefits of taking small but positive steps that reinforce your focus on how important YOU are. It is deliberately the 4th Critical Step.

Let me explain WHY it must be the fourth Critical Step, remembering that those Steps must be completed in their numerical order. It is not uncommon for many people to have heard the well-worn phrase of “If you want to be successful in life, set goals and achieve them”.

That of course is all well and good to say, but if life was that simple wouldn’t we have all just set goals and achieved them long ago? If you think about people you know, who set goals and achieve them, aren’t they people who appear to already know who they are and where they are going?

That is of course what the first three Critical Steps do for you. The Recognition and Embracing of Your Own Uniqueness (Step1), the Celebration of Achievements (Step2), and the Writing of a Vision Statement (Step3), are all designed for that purpose.

They set you on the path to be reminded of your value, and WHO you are, with all of your unique characteristics displayed, and WHERE you are going, giving you the opportunity for clear directions determined by what you want from life, and from your interactions with others.

Don’t be concerned if you have missed some of those messages, as they will be returning with more information over the coming weeks and months. And before you attempt to set any goals please make sure you have those three Steps in place, and that they are working for you, so you will receive the full benefit of setting those goals.

That is why today, my message defines goal setting, rather than giving the ten-point plan on HOW to set goals. That will come to you in the future when the message for the week again has the theme on setting goals.

Why undertake goals in the first place if you have a Vision Statement? Isn’t that enough? The difference between your Vision Statement and goal setting is that your Statement provides direction for personal accomplishment, and the goals focus on the activity required to consummate the approaching successes.

Your Vision Statement provides leadership of your concepts, and your goals provide the management for implementation. Make sure you understand the difference between Leadership and Management.

If a ship is travelling through Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the captain, although also expected to be a leader, provides management of the ships operations, while the pilot provides leadership, directing the course for the helmsman. Management without leadership could be disastrous. You would not want your ship, or your business, or your life for that matter, heading in the wrong direction no matter how well it is operated. Leadership always comes first.

That is one of the beneficial consequences of following this process. You get the opportunity to feel good by rediscovering your true value, while at the same time developing good leadership skills, which you and others will recognise as career enhancing, and that make you more attractive professionally, and personally, to others.

Anyway back to goal setting and Leadership. Setting goals is a Leaders way of planning. There are many moments of life that need to be planned. That is not to say that life should be planned so that it can be kept within a rigid framework. The secret of life will always be to live it. Planning within your goals is done so that life can be lived, not so it can be controlled.

And planning with the use of goals has nothing to do with time management. Smart business people recognise that to concentrate on time management is a waste of time. Leadership from smart companies and people comes from the acknowledgment that once you have learnt to manage yourself, everything else, including leadership from you, falls into place.

They recognise that the more motivated and productive people are, the more likely it is that their company, and their employees, will be efficient, and safe. This equates to greater profitability.

It is also important to talk about how simple or easy the first goals you set must be. Goals must be set with easy and achievable steps to their fruition. This will be part of the focus, the next time the weekly message has a theme of goal setting, along with HOW to actually set them.

Please take the opportunity this week to think about your goal setting plans. We would all love to hear about any of your personal goals that have paid off, and how they have given you some positive results. New types of personal goals are always a pleasure to share.

Your stories – even short comments – are of great value to inspire others, and I would like to take the opportunity to include your stories, or comments, in upcoming episodes of ‘Special Interest Items’. They will be included as they fit into the theme of the message for that week.

Do you know anyone you can help with leadership issues, or just feeling good about themselves? Forward this message to friends and work colleagues; print it out and place it on notice boards, and give copies to those without computer access. Printing out, and compiling each weekly message in a folder, is a good way to build a total knowledge of self-confidence and leadership. It will provide certainty in dealing with every aspect of your life.

Next week’s message will be about Critical Step 5. Application.
It is the fun step that allows you to display, and share, the positive view you have of yourself, and everyone else in this world, who will want to share your world with you. It will be followed in coming weeks by a message of Special Interest and the Cycle of Confidence and Leadership.

Until then, please continue to see yourself as a unique and remarkable person, who deserves to feel good about yourself every day.

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