Earl Nightingale
Words from the original self help guru and "Quoteamatic Machine" Earl Nightingale.. Every sports coach, business coach, life coach, sales coach and motivational speaker in the world has likely mentioned the importance of setting goals in your personal and professional lives at some point.
Personal goals can be as simple as making a New Years resolution to lose 10 pounds or as complex as charting out a personal development path with weekly and monthly checkpoints. Professional goal setting takes many different forms. Organizations proclaim mission statements to motivate employees, chart a course, and add a human element to a corporate entity. Sales organizations set Targets and Budgets for their teams and individually to motivate, keep on task, and create a competitive environment.
The reality is that we are setting goals all the time. For my 7 year old it might be choking back the Brussels sprouts so she can have ice cream for dessert. For many of us, it might just be getting through the work week so we can get to the weekend.
In my experience, happiness and success are a result of setting and achieving attainable goals. Setting a personal goal to lose 50 pounds may be unattainable in the short term even though you may have the best intentions. However, losing 10 pounds to start might be a little more attainable.
Similarly, the sales manager that keeps jacking up the sales targets to unattainable heights each year without taking into account underlying conditions is setting their team up for failure. Positioning your team to succeed is far more motivational than reciting your High School Football Coach's half time pep talk, or Baldwin's ABC Speech from Glengarry Glen Ross or a $25 gift card to Applebees.
The Donkey keeps following the carrot on the string because it is never more than a few steps away. If you keep feeding the donkey carrots and ask him to walk, or if a basket of carrots was waiting for him at the end of the journey I am pretty sure he wouldn't move very fast....
I am going to run a half marathon this weekend. What is your goal? I wanna know... @dannybraunstein
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