Effective Goals

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Effective Goals

3 principles of achievement

Introduction

Last month, I finally finished the book, "7 habits of highly effective people", and all I can say is I found the book to be spiritual. The scenarios detailed in the book were like a replay of my day to day to life. In today's issue of Unsolicited, I want to comment on the first three principles that can become a diamond to anyone's career.

Most importantly, Principles.

A habit is the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire. Knowledge is the theoretical paradigm, the what to do and the why. Knowledge explains the benefits you can get from a habit. Skill is how to do something. And desire is the motivation, the want to do. In order to make something a habit in our lives, we have to have all three.

A habit is the intersection of knowledge, skill, and desire.

Since you are reading this blog, I assume you have the knowledge of the need to improve as a person. In addition, the desire is intrinsic and known to only you, but you can learn the skills to create a habit that can bring success along the way.

Permit to share my insights on the skills to create a habit of achieving goals efficiently, skills I learned from the book "7 habits of highly effective people" (I sincerely wish you read this book).

Every successful person or idea becomes a philosophy. This explains the reason why there are so many different ideas when it comes to achieving the goals you've set. You can even bring up your own variation of accomplishment, but if you ever read the book of today's focus, you will observe similar habits between you and other successful goal achievers.

These similar habits can become principles, that if acted upon every time will almost always lead to success. Read further to find out about these coveted habits.

The need for principles

Borrowed strength causes weakness through dependence. You could always count on people to help you achieve your goals, or lie your way to achievement if it is a status goal. If it is a one-shot scenario, you could get it by luck.

Borrowed strength causes weakness through dependence

However, you won't be able to replicate success. But if you had principles you could follow to achieve your bigshot goals, then you stand a greater chance of being a high achiever too.

This is the power of systems. These systems of today's focus involve following or modifying certain principles to fit your situation.

Principles for Effective Goals

Although the book illustrates using seven principles to become a better person, I felt that three of these principles can be used to dramatically improve my career as a developer and likely yours.

These principles are:

  • Taking Initiative

  • Beginning with the end in mind

  • Doing first things first.

Taking Initiative

This means knowing that you alone are responsible. It doesn't mean that you can't be a victim of fate, in fact, that is perfectly understandable. What it means however is that you can influence something in any situation. Personally, I'd say you can influence your reactions to occurrences but let's look at it career-wise.

You can be the person to start working on a solution when everyone is star-struck by the problem. If the solution fails, become the person that analyzes why the problem failed and draws up lessons for you and the team to learn from. Be proactive!

You don't necessarily have to be the first, but you must be taking action, whether by thinking or by doing. Instead of complaining in any situation, ask how to influence and make the best of it.

Is there a challenge to accomplishing your goals? Start looking for strategies to get around it instead of just weeping. If you must weep, weep and work(rest is also work).

This doesn't mean being pushy but knowing that you are responsible for taking action. Most times, people want to feel a certain way before taking action, but this never works out great.

If our feelings control our actions, it is because we have abdicated our responsibility and empowered them to do so. Actions produce feelings, not the other way around.

Actions produce feelings, not the other way around.

Beginning with the End in mind

If you just go around taking action on impulse, then you might break a lot of things without truly effecting change or accomplishing your goals. If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster

You have to be sure that every task you complete takes you closer to your goals. Over the years, I've come to believe we are not separated from our goals by a period of time, but by a number of actions.

Make sure you know what you want to achieve, and if possible break this goal down into manageable bits and crush them. In summary, you have to stay on track. To do this, you have to be always conscious if your actions are in sync with the larger picture.

Doing first things first

This is the action part of things, go into the world and crush your goals. But you should know that if it is a bigshot goal, you won't achieve it in one day, you will need to work towards it every day.

When you work in a day, you must prioritize the goals that are most important to you. It is better to have 10 subpar tasks undone in a day and achieve both tasks that can complete your important goal than to complete 50 unimportant tasks and have your effective goals undone, whatever that is.

Bonus Principle: Retrospection

Be conscious of the challenges you are facing, and the innovations you are making in achieving your goals and be grateful for your growth.

Day to Day

Here are some ways I have determined to make these principles a habit in my life by using certain actions for certain principles.

  • Principle 1: Write three solutions to a problem and do them ASAP. Your aim should be to think, act and reflect as soon as possible.

  • Principle 2: State what success looks like and break it down into actionable tips.

  • Principle 3: Do the most important things first in a day.

  • Bonus principle: This is something I have to adapt to, every day I need to ask myself what I did right, and what I did wrong(Challenges I faced). How can I solve it? How I can become a little bit better the next day.

Conclusion

To be truly effective in what you do, you have to develop your systems. I believe to be effective at achieving your goals, you should imbibe the habits of being proactive, starting with the end in mind, and doing your most important tasks first in spite of distractions.

I am resigned to making these habits my career principle, join me.