Are you failing?

Right now I reckon in some way you’re failing at something.

I know I am, but I’m Ok with it.

Seriously.

To succeed you need to have criteria to define the success by. I’m a bit uneasy with the term ‘success criteria’ as it’s a bit too management speak so let’s call these criteria goals shall we?

You’ll never know if you are successful if you don’t set goals.

How is business? Your career? That meeting you just spent 5 hours in? What about that existing client relationship, is it working out? How do you feel about the direction of your life right now? How’s your marriage? Your progress re-decorating the house?

You can’t answer those questions authoritatively without have a baseline. A goal, target, whatever you want to call it.

With goals set life can become easier. You may actually be working harder as you’re motivated and productivity is up, but the important thing is that the things you’re doing either are, or as is sometimes likely the case, are not, meeting your objectives. At least you’ll know; the uncertainty is removed.

I’d argue that you should have goals set for lots of different parts of your life. Personal and business; home, work and social. Before you do something you can ask yourself “Is doing this thing going to meet any of my objectives” and clearly if you don’t have those objectives defined you’re never going to know!

But here’s the thing: even if you end up doing that task, taking on that job, sitting through that meeting that you’re not really sure why you’re at, life feels a little easier if you know that this little possible failure is just a rut in the path. Overall you’re moving the the right direction, the direction you’ve mapped out.

Also, don’t get hung up about other people’s ‘success criteria’. Judge your life against your own benchmarks, not what you are second-guessing others might be thinking about you. The most likely thing is they don’t care, they are too busy thinking about themselves anyway. But I digress, that’s a confidence thing and a totally different article.

Take control. Set some goals & start winning.