Outsmarting the Attackers A Deep Dive into Threat Intelligence.docx
10 biggest mistakes you must avoid when creating goals
1. 10 Biggest Mistakes You MUST
Avoid When Creating Your
Goals for 2014
Garry Mclachlan
http://www.ApplyingTheSystem.com
2. Why is Goal Setting So Important?
• In the often-quoted study undertaken by Harvard
University in 1979, graduates were asked if they
had written goals with action plans for their
achievement.
– 3 percent had clearly defined written goals.
– 13 percent had unwritten goals.
– 84 percent had no goals in any shape or form.
• The 1989 follow-up study of those same Harvard
students revealed that over a 10-year period the
3 percent who had written personal goals
were 10 times more successful than the
other 97 percent who had not.
3. Thoughts on Goals for 2014
• As Zig Ziglar says, “You must become a
meaningful specific rather than a wandering
generality.” To achieve all that you are capable
of achieving, you must develop a clear sense of
direction. You must decide exactly what you
want in every area of your life. Perhaps the most
impor- tant question that you will ever ask and
answer, one that returns over and over again, is
this: “What do I really want to do with my life?”
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4. Most Common Mistakes
1. They don’t write them down. Unless a
goal is written, it is merely an aspiration
—lifeless and devoid of power. Once you
commit it to writing, you set something in
motion. You clarify what you want and
begin focusing on how to attain it.
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5. Most Common Mistakes
2. They create too many. An old Chinese
proverb says, “Man who chases two
rabbits catches neither.” While you
probably need more than a single goal,
you need to stay focused on a
manageable number of them. I
recommend no more than 7–10.
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6. Most Common Mistakes
3. They only set them for one area of
their life. Most people are accustomed
to the idea of setting career goals. But
life is far more than your job. If you are
going to be happy and fulfilled, you need
goals in each of the major areas of life—
spiritual, physical, marital, relational, etc.
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7. Most Common Mistakes
4. They don’t make them specific. Most
goals—even written ones—suffer from
being too vague. “I want to write a book”
or “I want a better marriage” are too
general. Which book do you want to
write? How do you want to improve your
marriage?
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8. Most Common Mistakes
5. They don’t make them
measurable The only way to know if you
have achieved a goal is to quantify it.
“Lose 25 pounds” is much better than
“lose weight.” “Earn 10% more than I did
last year” is better than “earn more
money.” When in doubt, assign a
number or a percentage.
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9. Most Common Mistakes
6. They don’t assign a due date. So often
the important gets sacrificed on the altar
of the urgent. A deadline is one way to
create urgency and force yourself to pay
attention to what’s important. Without a
deadline, there’s little pressure to get it
done. It’s easy to procrastinate.
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10. Most Common Mistakes
7. They don’t keep them visible. How
many times have you written down a set
of goals and never looked at them
again? I’ve done it plenty of times. That’s
why you need a plan to keep them
visible, whether that means reviewing
them daily, weekly, or at some other
regular interval.
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11. Most Common Mistakes
8. They don’t stretch out of their comfort
zone. Safe goals are boring goals.
Unless we set our goals outside our
comfort zone, we won’t find them
compelling enough to actually follow
through and achieve them. They
shouldn’t be unrealistic, but they should
be challenging.
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12. Most Common Mistakes
9. They don’t make them personally
compelling. When you pursue a
meaningful goal, it is exhilarating.
Accomplishing it, even more so. But the
“messy middle” is where most of us get
stuck. This is why we need to write down
a set of motivations for each goal
identifying why it is important and what is
at stake.
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13. Most Common Mistakes
10. They don’t identify the next
action. You don’t need an elaborate
action plan for each goal. (Often this can
just be a fancy way of procrastinating.)
But you do need to identify the next
action, so you can initiate and maintain
momentum.
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14. 10 Biggest Mistakes You MUST
Avoid When Creating Your
Goals for 2014
• Chances are, you are going to live through
2014, one way or another. It can be
another year just like this year and last. Or
it can be something different … something
extraordinary … something amazing! The
choice is yours.
15. 5 Types of Goals
• You need a variety of goals to be happy and to
keep your life in balance. Specifically, in this
report we will deal with goals in five areas:
–
–
–
–
–
Personal goals
Family and Relationship goals
Financial goals
Business and Career goals
Health and Energy goals
• Each of these goal areas should fit like a piece
of pie into a pie dish to form a fully rounded and
completely balanced life.
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