Secrets of Success

Ever have times when the thought of doing a task makes you freeze? What do you do then? Do you decide that it may not be the right time to do the task, and put it off for another day? But time and again, whenever you think about the task you freeze again the same way, until the day arrives when your bottoms are on fire and you have no other choice but to start the task because it has become too urgent, or until the day arrives that you decide to give it up because it is no longer achievable?

What I just described is a typical pattern of procrastination, a huge hurdle towards achieving one’s goals. There are multiple reasons that could cause this to happen. In this post, I will address one of those reasons - The granularity of the tasks. Improper granularity of tasks was one of the main reasons that I used to keep procrastinating tasks many a times, and I will explain just how I was able to deal with it effectively.

In the previous post, we have seen how to set goals the Logical Way. Now there’s much more detail that I want to touch up on with regard to setting goals, but let me set that aside for the upcoming weeks and in this post shift the focus a bit and look into how to go about actually achieving a goal using a plan of action.

Granularity of goals

In reading about Logical Goals, you would have noticed that the word “goal” itself could have a wide scope. In fact, the vision component of a goal is a goal in itself. In this article we are going to see how we can make a plan of action to help achieve a goal better. The plan of action will consist of tasks, and we will talk about that in just a moment. As you would see, …

We’ve seen how New Month’s Resolutions can help hang on to one’s resolutions. Further, in order to achieve your resolutions, we’ve also seen why you should let your resolutions rest on goals. Now, like I mentioned in my previous post, when it comes to goals, defining them properly can make all the difference between being able to accomplish them or not.

Setting goals is not as simple as it sounds. A lot of research has gone into this subject, and as far as I am aware, there is no perfect way to get this right. However, the good news is that there are some tried and tested techniques that, if followed properly, provide a basis for setting achievable goals.

First, let’s look into how we can set goals the “SMART” way. “Oh, I already know about that!” may be your first reaction if you have already come across this approach earlier. If so, let me ask you this: “How easy, or how useful, or most importantly, how smart really did you find this technique of setting goals”

Have you ever been a failure? Almost everyone falls short of ones goals in some way or the other, at some point or the other. Wouldn’t you agree? If you did too, would you agree that you have been a failure then? Well, I wouldn’t. I’ve fallen short, but I’ve never been a failure. Wonder why?

Failure is not to be taken personally
Failure to achieve a goal does not mean that you have failed. It does not mean that YOU are a failure. No one is born with all the knowledge and wisdom to be able to do all the things that need to be done. You must learn everything along the way. Moreover, not all that you would need to know will be taught to you, and those that are not are the things that you would need to learn yourself, theoretically and/or practically. If you try and do not succeed, it only means that you at least attempted to do it. Further, it means that you …

A manager most of the time just manages what his subordinates do and focuses mainly on achieving the goals. A leader however, in addition to managing, goes one step further and leads the team. A leader demonstrates through example, and shows the way. He is capable of doing that what he expects his team members [...]