Prioritise : To help yourself

Prioritise : To help yourself

agarbandhu

goal in life?
When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won’t come with a handful of mud either. What is your goal in life? When I ask this question in class room I get different answers. I have come to the conclusion that my goal in life is to make myself happy first. If I am happy, I can make others happy.

When we set our goals, we become happy. We cannot remain stressful for too long. To remain happy, my goals are: to do my best in my job and to remain busy when I am not working.

Two aspects of life
In our jobs, businesses and social life we have two aspects – one is essential and the other is inessential. We can survive by doing what is essential only. For this reason, you will notice that many of us are successful and happy even when we work for less hours or earn less money. In sifting the essential from the inessential, you have to be smart.

Do One Thing at a Time
I focus on one thing at a time. Earlier, I used to do many things at the same time to achieve more goals or to reach the goals faster. I drove to Faridabad daily for twenty long years. At stressfree speeds, it took me thirty five minutes to reach Escorts. At stressful speeds, it took twenty eight minutes. I realized that it was foolish trying to save seven minutes everyday!

Moreover, during a stressfree drive, I can go through my mental floppies and come up with excellent ideas sometimes which help me see things in a better perspective.

fix and refix goals
Very often, by prioritizing, you are able to fix and refix goals and reduce your mental clutter and stress. Let me recount a story which elucidates this fact:
The first ever employees to make a million dollars a year were Walter Chrysler and Charles Schwab in the USA. Schwab once asked a consultant to suggest how he could get more done in a day. The consultant, after spending a week with him, suggested the following:
"Every morning, write down what are the six most important things you want to do on that day. Start doing the first one first, and then the second and then the third. And if by then the day is over, add three more the next day. Do it for three months and if it works, send me your payment."

Schwab sent him Rs.25,000/-

"cocktail" of activities

Well, what do you and many of us do?

We think that we are very smart. So we do several things at the same time.

This "cocktail" of activities only confuses us and we forget to apply the 80/20 principle – namely, that 20 per cent of the results and vice versa. This is applicable to any activity – say inventories, overdues, selling and so on. Of course, 80/20 can become 70/30 or 60/40.

Be effective…do the right things now. And then try to become efficient by doing these the right way. Very often, we spend considerable energy working the other way round – doing the wrong or unnecessary things with great gusto.

Goals must be Specific and Time-bound
A goal must have an action plan with dates to achieve it. A goal must have a meaningful end, one which gives you satisfaction and an inner glow, one which is pleasing to others and you don’t end up with guilt feelings. Your near and dear ones must feel happy about it also.

tempting to give up

Years ago, I asked one of my friend (while in delhi) why he went jogging all the way to India Gate (6 kms away from our house) instead of jogging in our lawn. He replied that when he kept India Gate as his goal, he ran up to that point and on reaching there had to come back, but if he jogged in the lawn, it would be too tempting to give up after taking only a few rounds.

Any goal must be specific and have a time limit. An excellent example is John F. Kennedy’s historic directive: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of putting a man on the moon before the decade is over."

a dream with a time limit

When you set goals, you overcome short-term problems. When you aim for perfection, you move towards your goal. You may be off by miles but you will be moving in the right direction. A goal is nothing more than a dream with a time limit.

Happiness, wealth, fame, fun, success, stress reduction, writing more books, traveling – you name it – are all byproducts of goal-setting.

Take small steps to achieve your goals. Many people fail to arrive at their goals because they take big steps quickly. Let us look at a high jumper. In fact, we must learn from sportsmen while setting our goals. If the goal of a high jumper is 6 feet, he does not start at 6 feet. He may start at 4, 41/2, 43/4…!

Bojourn................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! agarbandhu