Become a goalkeeper

Goals are essential to keep yourself motivated. Set smaller goals to reach the target

Shot of a young woman pinning notes on a corkboard at home

Youngsters always hear this famous sentence, ‘work towards your goal’ and often wonder how it works. First and foremost one should have a goal, so that it serves as an inspiration to look forward and move towards it. Having a ‘super goal’ in life is very good but one could get disillusioned by the non- approachability of the goal and leave the idea mid way; to avoid this there are many steps one could follow.

Keep the larger goal as the aim in life but allot to yourself simpler, easier goals that would help you reach that larger one. This is to keep targets that are easier to reach, may be short term ones where one could achieve within six months or so.

Break down the goal

Swetha, decided to finish her double master’s before she got married; she has just finished her first master’s and has entered on to a lucrative but hectic job with the IT industry; to think of doing another master’s and also saving money towards that was an herculean task for her- she divided her time schedule and started focusing on studies side by side towards her second master’s . She also kept a target of loan payment towards that and started a separate bank account for this purpose; also, set herself on a shorter schedule for writing exam papers for submissions and finally, she was able to finish her second master’s successfully.

Swetha could do this only because she could divide her present work and long-term goals into slots; she also set weekly targets for both the projects and proceeded towards it on a methodical manner.

Keeping a chart with markers, reminding oneself the long-term goal and the short-term ones, and placing such a chart at an accessible area around one’s work table could prove to be a constant reminder towards achieving the goal.

Meeting people who have walked the path or guiding figures who have achieved such tasks could help the person in marching towards it.

Having said this, one has to be reminded that a goal seeker has to decide his/ her own path and the outside world can only act as a stimulator or a distractor — whichever the case.

Motivation is the key to the success of reaching the goal. To motivate one-self there are many ways and he/ she could select what inspires the most — could be books, Ted talks, meeting others with similar goals, looking up to elders in the family and many more. But the most important aspect is to set the goals and start planning towards achieving it. The best part of this is that it has no age bars — so, get set, seek your goal.