Having A Goal Is Not Enough... Or Is It?

Leon From Lifehack
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Knowing what you're really after, your purpose, is vitally important to reaching your goals. But, how can you find out what that is?

I'll answer this question with a story about my friend Karen.

Karen's been working in the same marketing position for years, and finally decided she wanted to make a breakthrough in her career this year.

To start, she decided to take a 3 month marketing course to upgrade herself--something that she's been putting off for the last few years.

But, as soon as she started her program, she began struggling with both finding time and energy because of her work and family. She found the marketing course boring and tedious; and so, she had very little motivation to continue.

Despite having strong determination at the beginning, she found herself less and less interested as the program went on.

Having a goal can mean different things to different people. People who have a fuzzy idea of what they want can hardly have a clear goal. Some people have a pretty clear goal and know what they want, which is better. Others may even write their goals down and have a rough idea of how they will do it, for example "I want to get fit, so I will go to the gym for 1 hour each day."

But, is just having a goal good enough? In my experience, a goal is only one piece of the puzzle.

A lot of people fall into the trap of not really understanding what they want in the first place. Some people know what they want to change, but they don't know why.

For change to be sustainable, you need to know why: Why do you want to change this? For example, if you want to get fit... why? To be healthier? To feel more confident? To feel attractive?

A goal with no clear purpose is doomed to fail. Even if it's accomplished, you can feel incomplete still.

For Karen, she knew what she wanted -- to finish the marketing program and get a certificate. It was pretty straightforward.

But, when I asked her why, she wasn't sure.

Her first answer didn't really get to the root of what she wanted, so I taught her the 5 Why's Framework -- a way to dig down and really find out the fundamental intention.

Sometimes it takes a few tries and asking the right questions.

Here's how she arrived at her "aha" moment:

1. Why do I want to take the course?So that I can improve my qualifications at marketing.
2. Why improve qualifications?Because I want to take my career further and take on more leadership roles.
3. Why do I want a leadership role? Because I want to take charge of a campaign from beginning to end.
4. Why can't I do that now? Because I'm not proactive enough in being the point person that others follow.
5. Why is that?Because I'm afraid of public speaking situations and presenting my ideas to a live audience.

The final answer set off a light bulb in her head. It turns out that Karen was actually already very experienced with marketing. She'd come up with many brilliant ideas and was involved in many successful past campaigns.

After doing the 5 Why's, her weakest area was actually something completely different from the goal of a marketing course. In fact, she was secretly terrified of presenting in front of a lot of people. This the key factor really holding her back from taking a leadership role and advancing her career.

She didn't need more marketing qualifications. Taking that marketing course was boring and tedious because it was for the wrong reasons--plus, she already knew the material!

She understood that her focus should instead be on how to overcome her fear in public speaking and improve her live presentation skills.

While it seems simple in hindsight, without taking a step back for serious reflection, it's not something that everyone can see right away.

How about you? How ready are you to break free from your constraints?