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Goals And Outcomes Are Different.Goals and outcomes are often confused. I have attended many seminars and heard the “guru” on stage telling people that they only have to set the target to achieve whatever they wish in life. People leave the seminar and set some of the most ridiculous goals and outcomes imaginable only to discover within a few months that they are no nearer achieving what they set than the day before they started on this mission. Personal success at this stage is still no more than a distant dream. After this they start to feel as though they are the failures of society and will never, ever, achieve any worthwhile goals. In truth the guru, due to his/her insufficient knowledge of how the human mind works has done these paying clients the greatest disservice imaginable: They have contributed towards the destruction of self-belief in the majority of their paying audience. The problem is that most people do not understand the difference between goals and outcomes. You set goals to achieve an outcome and for too many people the goal becomes an outcome. Maybe if I use a basketball analogy to illustrate before giving examples it will become clearer: Basketball is a game played between two teams; the desired outcome of each team is to beat the opposing team. This is not a goal it is an outcome. A player sets a goal of putting the ball through the hoop. This is a goal, not an outcome, because a goal is step on a predetermined path to achieve an outcome. To achieve the outcome of winning the game the teams will set many goals, both defensive and offensive. The team that achieves most of its goals will achieve the desired outcome – winning the match. Example: How often have you witnessed a politician that has become a president or prime minister take office after an election and then appear lost as to what to do? I’m sure 75% of you have claimed this of one politician at sometime during your life. What you are witnessing is the phenomena of a person that has set his outcome to become president or prime minister and after they achieve it there is nothing. They have their desired outcome. Successful politicians set becoming president or prime minister as a goal and have a set of planned actions to improve the lifestyle of the people they represent as an outcome. A goal is a single step on the road to an outcome and all steps/goals should be easily achievable or you will trip and fall. If you set an outcome to become debt free in the next two years your first goal should be to create a family budget. Your second goal should be to ensure that the entire family works with you to follow the budget. Your third goal should be to hit your cost cutting targets. Hence you are heading for your outcome by continually achieving a series of small goals. If you only have goals you cannot achieve an outcome because you have no idea where you are heading. If you only set an outcome and have no goals then the outcome remains too far away and you soon give up trying because you feel it is unobtainable. Article 2 to follow.
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