How Written Goals Can Impact Your Life

A wealthy man makes you an offer that literally BLOWS YOUR SOCKS OFF!! The wealthy man is prepared to pay you one MILLION dollars, if you can carry out a particular feat. He wants you to hop into a car, and drive from your house to the home of Los Angeles Laker's star Kobe Bryant, and if you can make it to Kobe's home within four days, you will receive the money.

There is one catch to this equation. The man hands you Kobe's address, and tells you that you are not allowed to use any maps, GPS systems, or directional graphs, AND you are not allowed to stop at any point to request directions. Would you take this man up on his offer? Perhaps some of you would be silly enough to accept the offer, but I believe that it's pretty safe to assume that you would NOT make it to your destination.

I'm sure that this story sounds RIDICULOUS, and any reasonable person would not even CONSIDER striking out on such a mission. Yet MILLIONS of men and women in America are striking out on similar missions on a daily basis. When we establish a dream, and we fail to invest any time in asking for directions (reading books from individuals who have already realized our dreams), or utilizing a GPS system (written goals); we are SURE to fall short of our desired objectives.

So this brings us right back to the main topic of this particular blog: WRITING DOWN GOALS & ACTION STEPS.  Our goals or dreams serve as our desired destinations.  Our action steps serve as the GPS system that orders our steps and dictates our directions.

For the sake of clarity, I'm going to lay out an example here of how to apply reading, writing goals, and deveoping the action steps necessary to achieve those goals. "Well Winslow" one would say, "What does reading have to do with any of this?" I'll get around to that. Let's just start by saying that reading is fundamental to achieving success in ANY area of life.

Background

Johnny is scheduled to be married on Saturday of the coming week. Johnny has witnessed a number of failed marriages in his life, and he is bound and determined not to fail at marriage.

Goal

Johnny's goal is to become the best husband that he can be.

Reading

Johnny visits his local library, and checks out the following five books:

• Men Are From Mars. Women Are From Venus
• His Needs. Her Needs
• The Five Love Languages
• For Men Only
• Communication Miracles For Couples

Knowledge

As a result of his stopping to ask for directions (from those who have already realized his dream), Johnny is now armed with great deal of knowledge, that he can apply, in creating the following action steps.

Action Steps

Johnny is now at the stage where he is prepared to punch his desired destination into his GPS, so that he will arrive safely at his desired destination, within an established time period.

From his readings, Johnny has established the following action steps, or habits that he ABSOLUTELY has to develop and implement in order to be a GREAT husband.

1. Keep God first, and pray with his wife daily
2. Spend quality one-on-one time with his wife on a daily basis
3. Establish great listening skills. Spend less time talking, and more time listening.
4. Never say anything when angry, that he will regret at a later time.
5. Maintain a consistent level of intimacy at all times.
6. Never invite outsiders into the personal business of his marriage
7. Keep his wife involved in all family business dealings
8. Compliment his wife often
9. Establish habits of good hygiene around the house
10. If ever caught between spending time with his wife or his friends, ALWAYS side with the wife.

Now Johnny could very easily have set out with HIS OWN interpretation of what it meant to be a good husband, but he would SURELY have met failure. However, he understood the PROCESS of identifying goals, seeking assistance in the way of knowledge, WRITING DOWN the necessary action steps, and last; making a commitment to follow through on these established action steps.

I certainly hope that this information will be of some help to you. The practice of establishing and WRITING OUT personal goals, seeking knowledge, WRITING OUT action steps, and last: FOLLOWING THROUGH on those action steps can be applied with great success to ANY area of life. GOOD LUCK IN YOUR PURSUIT!!