• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2895 0

—$40,000 is enough for you to live the lifestyle you want. One person’s goal might be another person’s necessary condition. You must recognize in each facet of your life what is a goal and what is a necessary condition. A goal may change into a necessary condition in the short-term and then change back. Suppose you have set a goal of losing 20 pounds over the next six months. You have lost 12 pounds thus far, but Christmas is approaching and you want to enjoy the holidays with family. You may decide to “maintain my weight” until after New Year’s instead of forcing yourself to diet over the holidays. After New Year’s you are back to the diet and trying to hit your target of 20 pounds. Knowing the differences between goals and necessary conditions (reduce frustration) are important, so that you know where to expend your focus, concentration, motivation, effort, and time.

In a work or school environment, recognizing the differences between goals and necessary conditions of people, and the differences in the actions of those people, is vital to understanding teamwork and reducing your frustration level. For example, you have probably worked on class projects as a team of three or four students. Sometimes you have a teammate who really works hard and sometimes you have a teammate who does not seem to care. The difference may be that one teammate views the project as the means of achieving the goal of an A in the course, while another views the project as a means of achieving the necessary condition of a C in the course. Their level of activity (time commitment, motivation, concentration, effort, and energy) supports their objective for the course. A good question to ask potential team members prior to forming the team is, “What grade are you going to work for on this project?”

One last point concerning goal setting is the understanding that goals in each facet of life can, and do, change. If you graduate from a school in business and after a couple years find that you dislike business and want to do something else, spend some time evaluating where you are and where you want to go. Have your interests changed? You have your whole life in front of you. Many workers today dislike their job or their work environment, but fail to recognize their ability to change. You should enjoy each facet of your life, and if you encounter obstacles, address them. Reassessing your goals and developing new goals in each facet of life is an important part of your continuous improvement process.

To manage your time effectively, you have to know where you are headed. That is, you should establish both long-term goals and supporting short-term objectives. You must be proactive in setting and achieving your goals. They provide you a direction for focusing your daily personal and professional efforts. Strategy tells you how you are going to accomplish your goals. In addition to these goals, you should set daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly objectives that move you toward achieving your long-term goals. You must develop a strategy and supporting action plans to achieve your goals and objectives. Your goals and objectives should be defined so that you can measure your progress toward achieving them. Measuring progress requires designing a performance measurement system that consists of performance criteria, performance standards, and performance measures. A performance criterion is a factor to be evaluated, a performance standard is the desired or acceptable level of performance, and a performance measure is the actual performance. The steps in establishing goals, objectives, and a measurement system are provided next.

* * *

1. Identify your long-term goal and its supporting shorter-term objectives.

2. Develop a strategy (how you are going to accomplish the goal and objectives) and supporting action plans to then accomplish these things.

3. Identify a performance criterion for evaluating your progress toward your short-term goals and objectives. (What am I going to measure?)

4. Identify short-term standards for your performance criterion