It’s already the New Year. Time travels way too fast.
What is fascinating is, as you know, I put a great deal of research into each piece that I write for the Wayal Family. As I looked for information about the Chinese 2019 New Year, the Year of the Pig, my theme for this blog became about goal setting. With this, my first important suggestion for the New Year is to set priorities. That is the web of life that I described more than a year ago.
Of course, varying websites mention the traditional attributes of wealth: being realistic, working hard, etc. However, it’s canny and timely for anybody to suggest the importance of making and keeping priorities.
Goal getting is the first step to achieve goals. The famous author, motivational speaker who passed several years ago, Zig Ziglar known for his wit and common sense, would say “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” In other words you can reach new heights by your honest goal setting and hard work. Further and more importantly, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” And that is primarily why I borrow Ziglar’s words as the topic of this blog.
The first step is always the hardest. How many of us have made New Year’s resolutions that we could not keep? Well, the answer is quite surprising: only eight percent of people actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions by the end of the year while eighty percent fail by their second month!
There are so many pitfalls to goal setting.
I would tell my students the following: the most important is to make goals reachable, reasonable, and measurable. A great marketer once said, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
Therefore, you must physically write down short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term goals. After you have written it, put them in a place where you can see each morning, so it will become part of your being. Second, do not have too many goals at the same time, and always remember sometimes “less is more.”
Third, review goals and adapt them to the current environment. Sometimes things are out of our control, but it is OK to modify our goals.
The outstanding characteristics of the pig, as you may all know, is its diligence, compassion, and patience to achieve goals. The energy from each of us can be contagious; the importance of working on our own is as important with helping one another.
My favorite quote from Z-squared or Zig Ziglar is “what you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” Personally, I believe our goals include how we can help others.
As a social capitalist, it’s about returning, not receiving. Success can be measured both individually and collectively. Not all our days, weeks or months will be successful. Perhaps if we help others around us through an advice or a lead we share, then we can all succeed.
Let me wish all of you and your families a Year of Health, Happiness, and Good Fortune and remember to DREAM: Do, Remember, Excite, Advance, Momentum!
