A goal is how you see yourself in the future. Your goals are important to build and transform your life for betterment. Your goals determine your lifestyle and philosophies you adopt in your journey of life.
Goals are broadly classified as being realistic in nature or unrealistic. Realistic goals are the goals in which the chances of achievement are considerably high. Unrealistic goals on the other hand are the goals that may most of the time do not come out fruitful.
Realistic goals are far more practical in nature, like acquiring a qualification or pursuing a career. Unrealistic goals are the superficial goals that may or may not many times be achievable, like going for a trip into space or landing on the moon, etc.
You have to set goals consciously understanding the reasons behind and envisioning the future beforehand. Certainly every goal needs fueling the requisite skills, energy, time, and resources.
By infusing all these if you understand the ground reality well, you could achieve the goal, which is nothing but your realistic goal. But despite cooking all these fuels, if you still find it difficult or if things don’t materialize, you could as well term this as your unrealistic goal.
You might get a chance to turn your unrealistic goals to realistic ones, but that happens mostly by pure luck or by an external force over which you have no control.
Be authentic and true to yourself when you sit setting your goals in the first place. Make a list of all such goals you have in mind. Then define which of these goals fall into the realistic bracket and which others fall into the unrealistic bracket of goals, by employing the tips undermentioned.
- Identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Jot down all your master skills and your scapegoat areas. If your goal matches your skill or you have the self-esteem to build upon the necessary skills, you could undoubtedly achieve it by dedicated efforts.
- Identify your opportunities and threats.
Before you jump into action, try to estimate the pitfalls that come over during your journey. Estimate all the pros and cons that you foresee to encounter. If you express a keen interest in driving them off your way, certainly your goals are realistic.
- Determine your strategy.
Your approach towards your goal also decides if it can be realistic in nature. With a structured plan and a well laid out action strategy, if you envision achieving your goal, it means it is a realistic goal.
- Estimate the potential inside you.
You may not be a master of all. You are certainly not an all-rounder, just like anybody else. This is the time when you have to give yourself time to work in building up new skills that direct you towards your passion and desired goals.
- Stay calm and listen to your inner voice.
Spend time with your inner self. If you have a concrete reason and supplement it by dedicated action, you can very well achieve the goals of your inner voice making them realistic by your effort and hard work.
- Seek feedback from others.
You can work but you cannot judge yourself as you are bounded by external forces. Take timely feedback from others who have an eye on you. Invest your time in spending with them and deciding whether the goal that you set is for sure to happen sooner or later. Else, recall your goals and revise them accordingly.
- Review your progress.
Make notes of the progress you make working towards your goal. You might miss the timelines at times, but what is more important is whether you can practically achieve it or not. Compare your present progress to that of your past. This decides whether your goals are realistic or not.
- Read success and failure stories.
You are not born with worldly knowledge and wisdom. You have to keep training yourself and have to put yourself in the learning curve all along. To gain more insight, you have to keep reading a lot of both success stories as well as failure stories, to determine whether your goals are realistic or not. You will now have a reasonable idea of your journey towards your goals.
Finally, you have to understand that any goal is achievable if you have the potential, the drive, and the commitment towards achieving your desired results. Do all necessary groundwork to make your goals materialize. You would have already gained a fair idea of whether they are in real realistic or not.