SETTING GOALS: A REAL WAY

        Smoking kills 900,000 people every year in India, and unless corrective action is taken soon that number will increase to 1 million smoking-related deaths annually by 2010 and beyond, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

         "Smoking kills". The size of the skull mark and the warning sign has been made bigger. Government also increases the taxes on them every now and then. But these results are not showing effect as it should be.

Ask any smoker how many times they have kicked the butt in their life. They all start with a goal “not to smoke” but end up where they are now. So we will discuss how to set a SMART goals.

But the goals which are continuous in nature, where goal is not reaching there but remaining there we need two more elements

1.     Evaluation: It’s a continuous feedback if where are there or are starting to slide. Most large organization evaluates their market position as often as they can.

2.     Reevaluate: For a long stretched goal evaluation won’t do alone. There must be a desire to stay there. Reaching the top of the mountain is a goal because scaling the mountain is what makes the view from the top so exhilarating. But no one would like to be on the top unless there is a reward in it. So evaluation must be followed by a reward.

So that takes us to SMARTER goals.


Q. Why don't smokers quit smoking?

1. They are common man and they don't know how to set smarter goals  They are common man and don’t know how to how to set smarter goals but most CEOs also face the same.

2. They don’t want to.

3. They are too addicted to nicotine

Well none is such a strong reason. In fact this is with all goal settings. Why do we fail to accomplish our own perceived goals? This leads to very basic facts of setting goals.

           What do people understand when we say “setting goals”. It means “a lofty ambition,” something to “shoot for,” something to “strive for,” or something to “work towards”. The descriptions we give the the word “goal” implies it will be difficult to achieve or in a word "impossible". There is a subtle undertone crafted by the implicit meaning of the words telling you won’t achieve your goal. This gives us a chance for us to rationalize if we don’t realize the goal. “Ahhh I reached 90 % of my goal”, “goals are meant to be like that” , “ I gave in my best”, “ this is all I could do”……… So the achievement of a goal becomes actually an alternative.

        But consider a situation you promised your girlfriend that you would be on a date with her and suddenly when you are about to come out of the office a very important work stalls you there. You call her up and say you won’t be able to make up. So you set up an easy goal and you can’t achieve it. 
      Now in this case you feel bad. Here you don’t rationalize even if have the perfect reason. This is because it’s a promise. Non achievement of a goal leads to rationalization but in case of promise it leads to guilt as it has higher emotional attachment.

      However there is difference between a goal and a promise. We promise what we consider doable. So to map goals to promise we can break our goals to small small promises, telling about them enthusiastically to your friends and family and including them in your goals and achievements. Here the goals won't become my goal only but it would be a shared promise and when you would start to drift they would remind you of your goals. To put in the words of ―  Paulo Coelho “And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” , The Alchemist