Why you should be unreasonable and set scary goals

Goal setting and goal achieving are two completely different aspects of goals. Now that's an undramatic, obvious start, but this fact is usually ignored when we are setting goals. This post talks about the dynamics of the two, and how we can use this knowledge to set audacious, big, scary goals.

To get the ball rolling, let's look at goal setting. It is an intellectual activity. All we need to ask is , "Do I want it?". We need not be emotionally involved with it. If you spoke to me about something you wanted, it would mean you were consciously entertaining the idea. Thus, it qualifies for goal-setting, because you are holding that thought in your conscious mind.

Goal achieving is more complicated. It requires us to be emotionally involved and the stakes are higher. We need to work on developing new habits (paradigms) , taking continuous and meaningful action and most importantly stretch our belief system. We will never achieve a goal till you we deeply believe that we can reach it. As Napoleon Hill says, "There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it. No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it. The state of mind must be belief, not mere hope or wish.”

                                                                    

While belief is essential for you to achieve your goals, and here is where it is really interesting, you need not believe that you will reach the goal.  Our belief will be developed in the goal-achieving process. As Bob's mentor put it "Our belief system is based upon our evaluation of something, and frequently as re-evaluate something our belief about that will change." That is precisely the beauty of setting and going after big goals, we get to work on our limited belief systems and really question and replace them with empowering belief systems; the aim of going after a goal is not to get, but to grow.  

Goal setting, therefore, does not require us to believe we are ready to reach the goal. This means, we can free and fully express ourselves when setting goals. There is no need to limit them because we cannot see how we are going to get them. Sit down, fire up your imagination, figure out what you really want and then set that big, scary and audacious goal.

P.S. Once you have set a scary enough goal, we will talk about the nuances of the goal-achieving process, methods to strengthen belief, and how to figure out the next step in later posts.