This is an excerpt from ‘Achieving Meaningful Success: Unleash the Power of ME!’ by Dr Vivek Mansingh with Rachna Thakurdas. Published with Penguin Business.
Life goals can be largely divided into two groups, professional goals and well-being goals.
My professional goals comprised career (including education), financial and material goals while well-being goals comprised relationship, health, fun, spiritual and giving back goals.
Setting Professional Goals
When setting your professional goals, be aspirational, think big and do not worry about the constraints that you may face while achieving them. Shoot for the stars because even if you miss, you will land on the moon.
If you have a hard time freeing yourself from constrained thinking, assume that if god grants you three wishes for your personal and professional aspirations, what would you ask for? These are the goals you might want to set for yourself.
‘The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.’
—Michelangelo
Once the goals are set, be obsessed with them and go after them passionately. To achieve these seemingly difficult goals, you must become the best version of yourself and the person who deserves to attain these goals. Improve skills in your core function, build leadership skills, pursue excellence and train yourself to think outside the box to get there.
Let me give you a simple example: If you set a goal to run 100 metres in 12 seconds, it may look impossible from where you are today. An average man can run 100 metres in 27 seconds while a woman can run 100 metres in 34 seconds. An average athlete can run 100 metres in 14 seconds.
But, if you train like Usain Bolt (9.58 sec) or Florence G. Joyner (10.49 sec), the Olympic champions, is it possible for you to reach at least 12 seconds? Yes, it is absolutely possible!
When Farhan Akhtar, a Bollywood actor who was not an athlete, started preparing to play Milkha Singh (the Flying Sikh, an Indian track and field sprinter) on screen in the movie Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, he began training with astounding zeal. And he was running 100 metres in less than 12 seconds when the movie was ready to be shot!
This is the power of that one decision you take, to become the best version of yourself. I strongly believe, if your goal is to be a CEO or to own a $100 million company, no one can stop you as long as you are willing to work passionately and become the person who deserves it. So, set big goals and become worthy of achieving these goals.
‘Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.’
—Rabindranath Tagore
Do not forget to find yourself a mentor and become a good mentee. Also, draw inspiration from people whom you admire and can be your role models.
Setting Well-Being Goals
If life were a coin, professional goals would be on one side and well-being goals on the other. Well-being goals are as important as professional goals. Relationships are your most valuable assets; spirituality is the rock for your soul; health, the base from which any other achievement can be pursued; and giving back, the deep replenishment for your inner self.
When one is caught up in chasing professional success, these well-being goals often slip down in priority. The only way to ensure they don’t slip is to be as rigorous in setting these goals as you are in setting professional goals. These well-being goals provide you with a platform and make you a person ready to achieve your professional goals.
How much time and effort should one devote to each goal category? Here is a suggestion, but ultimately you decide for yourself. Of course, the weighting will change based on your goals and stage of life.
Professional Goals: Career/Education/Financial/Material Goals 70 per cent
Well-Being Goals: Relationship Goals: 15 per cent, Health/Sports/Fun Goals 10 per cent, Spiritual/Giving Back Goals 5 per cent
Another important piece of advice: You will be able to achieve goals only if you are committed to articulating and writing them down as SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.
Therefore, a SMART goal incorporates all of these criteria to help focus your efforts and increase the chances of achieving your goal. This is an age-old but very reliable and handy method.