Tag Archives: goal setting

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Understanding Failure

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To know if you have failed you must first understand what it means to succeed. Basically failure is associated with a lack of success.  If you don’t know what success looks like you can never know if you have failed.

This concept is really about objective setting or defining yours goals.  Success requires planning.  This starts with a clear understanding of what is to be achieved.

Measurable

The best way to measure success is through the use of facts, that is something that is known or has been proved to be true.  Facts are objectively determined.  It is or it isn’t.

Our goals can contain some subject components and while they may be valid aspirations determining success or failure can be somewhat judgmental.

For example, on entering a confectionary shop you charge yourself with selecting (and consuming) the best tasting chocolate in the store.  Taste is a very subjective measure and as such, claiming success (or failure) can change for each person.

Defining Failure

Being able to know when you have failed (because success was clearly understood) is an invaluable skill.  Without clearly believing and accepting failure we are unlikely to re-plan and try again, perhaps with a different approach.

In essence after undertaking a challenge you may just decide to live with the results (to your detriment) and ignore the fact you did not actually succeed, i.e., you failed.

Taking Action

Clearly understanding what you want to achieve also enables you to decide when and how to change course, perhaps modify the goal or even drop it entirely.

Knowing whether you failed or not is a prerequisite for this.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Vision, Goals, Strategy, Tactics

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Our ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom is often referred to as vision. This can be a great starting point to define your goals and objectives.

Using what you visualize your future to be as a foundation, goals are the specific aims or desired results that make up the steps to enable you to achieve what you seek.

What Next

Once you have determined your goal/objective, that is the achievement aimed at or sought, the next steps are to determine how this will be done.

This is where strategy comes in.  Basically a plan of action or policy designed to achieve a major or overall aim – i.e., your ultimate goal or objective.

Strategies clarify what is to be achieved, by when and how.  This may be a multi-step process and the strategic plan does not need to be detailed but is rather more indicative in nature.

Make it Happen

After you have defined your vision, developed the goals to support is and combined everything into an overarching strategy, it is time for execution.

Use your strategy to develop tactics and associated tactical plans.  These are a series of carefully thought out actions that form the recipe for success.

The tactical plan defines activities that are focused on achievement of a specific end – the specific milestone needed to support the strategy which is just an encapsulation of the goals and objectives required to achieve the vision.

Using vision, goals setting, strategy development and tactical planning enables you to perform efficiently with a high chance of actually achieving your vision.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Success

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Your accomplishments are a key part of what defines you, both to yourself and to others.   These successes are dependent on your belief the purpose or aim has been accomplished.

To be successful begins with understanding what success looks like (i.e., your purpose or aim).  If you are not perfectly clear on the goal or objective (what you are trying to achieve) how will you know if you achieved it?

In Isolation

In reality, however, if your only measure of success is personal and subjective without considering the views of others, you might not be as successful as you think.

Taken in isolation believing in the achievement of personal success can still be of value to you, however, it might not be a singularly defining factor from another perspective.

That is you may consider your achievements as important and valuable.  This can be personally motivating and lead to self-aggrandizement.

Unfortunately, if it is not a common view.  This leads to the question, “Have you been successful if it is not validated by others and from alternate perspectives?”

Your Happiness

Is success what you define it to be or is it defined by those around you?  Perhaps this is best answered by the rhetorical question,  “Who is in charge of your happiness?”

Remember those around you do not define your goals, they may influence them but you own them.  Living within the context of others approval might be needed to supplement your personal success but it should not be over powering.