Something to hold onto as the year begins.

       The year 2020 has come to an end, and, every one of us knows where we are today against all odds. If not for anything, we thank God for life. We do not know what 2021 has in stock for us all, we all just hope for the best, but, as we hope for the best, are we working towards being the best? We all don't need to become the best in a day, but, do we have plans ahead of us? Truly, we planned for so many things in 2020, and, probably, if not all, just a few of this plan of ours came to the fore. It was even during the ups and downs of 2020 that some people realized they have opportunities in them that they never knew. 

    There's so much to achieve when we plan and set a goal. A goal is deeper than just mere hope, a goal is beyond physical thinking, it's beyond faith, you can't be a man of faith, and not set goals.

Oh! Come 2021, I want to do this, I want to do that; take your plans beyond physical thinking, make them into goals, and, discipline, yourself on how to achieve these goals.

    Goal setting is the discipline of determining what you want to achieve, and, developing plans on how to achieve them. A few of the importance of goal setting is that it gives you clarity, the first step to productivity is clarity, and, it's only when you sit, plan, and pen your goals down that you gain clarity. A goal-setter pens his/her goals down.                          

     A research was made by a set of researchers in America, and, I will use it as an illustration. Some set of students were in school some years back, they all were saying what they would have become in the next 10 years, of course, that's the normal thing all students do. Few of them wrote these goals, few just had it in mind, and very few had no plan, they just embraced whatsoever life brought to them. After 10 years, these researchers went back to check, and they found out that 80% of those who penned down their goals had reached where they planned to reach, the remaining 20% are near reaching it, that's fair enough. Of those who didn't write theirs, 40% has been employed by those who wrote theirs, the remaining 60% were either job seekers or menial jobbers, those who had no plan truly embraced what life brought because their names weren't even in the American payroll, and, none established any business. Penning your goal is important, very!    

     Goal setting makes you focus, you concentrate on the plans, you don't divert and you don't get distracted; there's no achievement without focus.

Goal setting helps you measure your progress, it makes you know if you are where you planned to be at a particular point in time, if not, do you need to buckle up?

Setting goals provides motivation, it motivates you to hit the target you want, it helps you expand the capacity of your mind. Most importantly, goal setting helps your prayer life.

    The questions that goal setting brings to your mind are the WHAT, WHY, WHEN, and, HOW questions.

- What do I want to achieve?

- Why do I want to achieve it?

- When do I want to achieve it?

- And, how do I want to achieve it? The HOW question is the strategic question.

     Your goals must be authentic, it must come from within, not borrowed goals.

It is only when you don't set goals that you have money, and, it mars you. When money enters an unprepared hand, the money can ruin the hand. Every money a man gets before he prepares becomes a misfortune; 

don't let your case be like that, it's never too late to plan. Plan your future, your career and business, plan your family, your health, your social life, your mental and personal development, plan your spiritual life. These are the basic wheel of life. You need to plan these things so as not to waste too much of your time.