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THE IMPORTANCE OF VALUES-BASED GOALS
No goal achieved will give you true fulfilment unless it is congruent with your personal values. It
is imperative that you establish your hierarchy of values before contemplating setting goals in
the relevant areas of your life.

There are many books, workshops etc on goal-setting and you may have your preferred
method. Return to the section on values. Establishing core values is your first step before goal
setting.

"You must intensely desire that which you seek i.e. love, because you will
automatically attract to you that which you love.
It is impossible to desire something strongly that is not congruent with your basic
values in life as you cannot love that which you do not value".
Think of a salesperson who lists 'Family' at the top of their Values and 'Health' second. They have
a goal of being the top salesperson in their field, earning £200,000 per annum. In order to
achieve the goal, they choose to travel for 10 months of the year, working 14 hour days, eating
fast food for lunch and business dinners with clients in the evening. When they are at home,
they play golf with the MD and the rest of the time they sleep or watch TV. What conflict exists
here?
Stephen Covey's quote of "climbing to the top of the ladder of success then realising it's leaning
against the wrong wall" comes to mind.
Now go back to the Values session, and if you haven't completed the exercise to establish your
Core Values, do so now.
12 elements for goal achievement

As well as the five S.M.A.R.T. elements already described, the following steps must also be
incorporated:
1. BE PASSIONATE about your goal which must be personal. Live it, breathe it, taste it. Make it
your 'Magnificent Obsession'. Thomas Edison was passionate about finding a way to produce
incandescent light with the use of electricity. He did not give up. It is reputed that he was
once asked how it felt to have failed 700 times. His reply was "I haven't failed, I've discovered
700 ways how not to do it".
2. Always state your goals in the PRESENT TENSE and in the POSITIVE. "I will give up smoking" is
neither. 'Giving up' suggests the loss of something - regardless of whether it's healthy or not - and
most smokers will on the whole claim categorically that they enjoy smoking. "I will" also suggests
some date sometime in the future - the subconscious mind disregards this because it only
accepts present tense information and it doesn't know when to 'deliver' for you.
You can effect subconscious change only by communicating in the language it understands,
the present tense. This comes from the theory of cognitive dissonance, which states that when
you hold two psychologically inconsistent thoughts, you experience dissonance, or a sense of
tension and inharmonious feelings. The subconscious, in an attempt to reduce the discomfort of
the conflicting messages, does everything it can to create the most recently imposed
suggestions or self-talk.
Using present tense. You are telling to your subconscious mind to start working today.

A goal that is not written down is merely a wish. All the 'golden formulae' for goal-setting agree
that your goals must be WRITTEN DOWN.

3. Keep a GOAL JOURNAL. This should contain each of your goals, together with the reasons
why you want them, and how they will feed your Core Values. Allocate at least one page for
each goal and date it at the top.