Having A Goal And Aggressively Shooting For It... That's How You Win The Stanley Cup In Life!

A Goal, Huh, What's That? If you ask most people what their goals are for the next three to five years, they would give you a look like, huh? Most people don't even know where they are going to be in a year, much less any longer and, truthfully, most people maybe only know where they will be Friday night for the best happy hour spot. The reality is most people don't set goals and, therefore, have no game plan and ultimately nothing to shoot for making it virtually impossible to score and win.

The Game Of Hockey... Are You Playing It? The game of hockey and the game of life are very similar. First of all, could you imagine the game of hockey, if there were no nets to shoot at? What would the players do all game long, skate around and around and around in circles? The game would get boring pretty quickly, wouldn't it? With nothing to shoot for and no way to keep score, it would be "pointless"! Well, that's what life is like with no goals and that's how most people live it. People just go around in circles repeating the same behaviors and habits over and over again and end up achieving the same results, most of the time not the ones they want. If that's not the way you want your life to be, you better set some goals to shoot for.

Secondly, I'm sure you've noticed, while watching a hockey game, there is a goal tender intentionally trying to prevent people from scoring goals and defensemen also trying to stop goal scorers. That's why the players wear pads and a helmet, because many times scoring goals requires going through and around obstacles and people. It's the same thing in life; if you're going to set goals, especially big goals, then you have to know up front that you're going to take a lot of hits along the way to scoring your goals. There will be many things, and possibly even people, trying to stop you from scoring your goals. I know in an ideal world everyone would be supportive and do everything they could to help you reach your goal but, unfortunately, that is not reality, so don't expect it! It's just part of the game, a part you should love because it's what makes playing the game worth it. If in a hockey game the players were shooting at open nets, there would be no challenge and, therefore, no sense of accomplishment. I've always appreciated the notion that my goals would only be scored if I were willing to go through whatever was necessary and that the feeling of achievement is what made me set another goal. I'm sure you've noticed that, after every goal scored in a hockey game, a short celebration ensues because scoring each goal is a big deal on the way to winning the game. In other words, all the hard work and effort is worth it when you score those goals and, if you keep shooting for your short-term goals, eventually it will lead you to your long-term goals.

The Game Plan: Sit down with a pen and paper and write down all your big goals and don't hold back. Whatever is important to you, no matter how unrealistic someone else might think your goal is, if it is realistic to you, put it down. An example of a big goal was the notion of sending a man to the moon. Whoa, that's a big goal! We did it, but the real point is that you must have a vision of what you desire the end result to be and, once you have it, then the next step is creating a stair-step of smaller goals to achieve in order to get to the final destination. Back to going to the moon; obviously they had to first design, build and test a rocket ship, and then they had to train astronauts, and I'm sure there were many other short-term goals that had to be accomplished. Well, once all of those short-term goals were reached, the rest was history. So are you ready to set some goals to shoot for?

Simple Goal Setting: Where there is a successful person, there is a person who knew he had to set a goal. I'm sure some of you already set goals and may already have an approach that works for you, which is great, but for those of you who don't have an approach the following outline is a great, simple way to get started immediately setting goals. Remember, this is just a simple way to get started. You will be able to learn so much more about this critical part of success by becoming a member of the new GA website, attending some of my goal-setting seminars and by reading my new book "Things That Make You Go Hmm" coming later this year. Stay tuned and visit the GA site often for further details. Okay, here we go.

4 Simple Steps To Score Your Goal:

1 - What specifically do you want? The key word is "specific"; you can't just say you want a car. You must state what kind of car...make, model, color everything. BE SPECIFIC!

2 - Set a specific date and make it public. Know when this is going to happen and then tell everyone. If you won't make it public, you don't believe it's going to happen and you're worried about failing before you even get started. With that attitude, you shouldn't even take the ice. Believe in yourself!

3 - What is your investment? And, I don't mean money. What are you willing to put in to get what you want? Some people call it a sacrifice, but that means you would have to lose something to get what you want. An investment means putting something in that will return you your original investment plus the benefits. For example, what if you loved playing golf, but you had a major goal you were trying to achieve and you said, "I will not play golf again until I score my goal". That would be an investment that would make you work hard to hit your goal so you could play golf again and, therefore, you would get your golf back plus your accomplished goal. Is your goal worth the investment?

4 - Establish a game plan and walk your plan backwards. Once you determine the actions that are required for you to hit your goal, start at the end and break down a day-to-day action plan from the end to the beginning. By doing this you will know exactly what you need to do daily to score your goal.

Did you know that the 2007 Anaheim Ducks won their first Stanley Cup? Well, first, congratulations to the Ducks! But you know what this really means; it means that no matter how long you've been playing the game of life, as long as you keep shooting for your goals, you, too, will eventually win your first Stanley Cup! And for those of you who have won a few Cups... there's nothing wrong with a few more... that's how dynasties are built!

Go For Your Goals!

www.greggamerman.com