Most people set goals for themselves. And goals are a good thing to set for yourself – but they aren’t the only thing you need to reach significance.
Asking “Have I Achieved My Goal?” is different from “How Far Can I Go?”
When you achieve a goal – you tend to stop. You’ve set a finish line for yourself that will cause you to lose momentum after your goal is achieved.
But asking yourself “How Far Can I Go?” sets a tone that you are going to grow all the time – for the rest of your life if you stay in your strengths.
You want to set goals in your area of strength, but with the mindset that they are waypoints in a journey and not the ultimate achievement of the journey.
This means that we will set goals, achieve them, and set more goals, achieve them, and keep the process going and going and going.
And it’s only in our strengths that we can grow much further than in our weaknesses.
When I do leadership coaching with clients, I will give them the following scenario: let’s say you are back in high school, and you have four classes.
It doesn’t matter what the classes are – but you have four of them. Let’s say you are working as hard as you can in all four classes, and your grades are B, B, A, and D-. Which one grade should you focus on to reach the highest level of success?
Go ahead and answer that scenario for yourself before you continue reading, then also think about why you gave that answer. I’ll wait.
Okay, did you answer it? Good. Your answer tells you a bit about your own thinking.
If you picked the D- grade, you have a “competency” way of thinking. You probably think that it’s better to get all of your skills up to an even level because that way, you can do everything that’s needed. You can be competent (another way to say competent is mediocre).
This way of thinking often causes frustration and irritation because you just don’t have a natural inclination towards whatever it is you are trying to do.
If you picked the A grade, then you have a “strengths” way of thinking. You probably think that if you focus on the things that come easy to you, you can go even further than others because you are already really good at whatever it is you are strong in.
This way of thinking tends to be fun and enjoyable because you are doing something that is easy for you, and it’s fun to get better at the things that come easy to you.
And when things are fun, you will want to do more of them. Even when it gets tough in your area of strength, you will tend to push through and overcome it because of the confidence you feel in your ability to grow in your area of strength.
You won’t feel the same way in your area of weakness. That’s where you will get discouraged and frustrated as you run into obstacle after obstacle, and you won’t be able to overcome those obstacles without lots of work.
When you know your areas of strength, and you set goals in those strengths, knowing that once you achieve those goals, you will push even further, you are on the path to a life of not only success, but significance as well.
And that’s a life well spent.
Until next time,
Mike Traywick
Founder of Law School for Teens