If you are reading this article soon after it is published you may well be following the World Cup of football (which is soccer, for my American friends, not the adaptation of rugby that a Yale rugby player turned into what is now called American Football). Personally I am not the slightest bit interested in football, but I accept I am in a distinct minority in that regard.
I believe the aim in football is to score as many goals as possible (although perhaps in the case of my team, England, it is to try to avoid as many penalty kicks as possible!) Achieve lots of goals and you win the game.
It is the same in life. Winning the game of life is all about achieving as many goals as you can. Or, rather, as many "right" goals as you can. Just as in football you can have a wrong goal (please refer to the "offside rule"), so you can in life too. Although unlike the case in football there is a wide gradation of "right" and "wrong" goals. You cannot win the game of football by scoring lots of "wrong" goals, and nor can you win the game of life this way either.
Achieving lots of the right goals should not be regarded as putting on lots of pressure and creating lots of stress - which is the way probably most people see it.
Perhaps one good way of looking at this is by comparing it with what you might do on holiday. What, for you, is the purpose of a holiday, and what constitutes a really good holiday? Think about this carefully for a few minutes and answer both of those questions as honestly as you can. Do this before reading any further if possible, as it is best if you complete this exercise before seeing what I say next.
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Many people will have answered that the purpose of a holiday is to rest, to recover so you have lots of energy to carry on with your daily life on your return. Certainly that would be my answer to the first question.
Many of those same people will then anwer that a really good holiday allows them to see lots of new things and take part in lots of exciting activities. If you go on a package holiday you will find that the resort is usually designed in such a way as to achieve this. Typically on the morning after your arrival you will meet with someone whose role is to convince you to go on lots of trips, some of which will probably involve waking up really early in the morning, perhaps earlier than you would normally get up in order to go to work! Even if you don't book many, or any, of these "exciting" tours, you will probably find the resort will organize lots of sporting and other activities and encourage you to join in them rather than laze by the pool or on the beach.
Or perhaps your idea of a good holiday is the same as the American tourists in the 1969 film "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium". Get to see as many countries as possible, without spending enough time to "see" any of them at all!
Now for some people perhaps having a frantically active holiday really does give them rest and recovery. If so, they are making the right decision by signing up for all those activities that appeal. But for many others, including me, indulging in so many activities means I don't get the rest and recovery I need. So I try to ensure I budget plenty of time for just lying back on the beach or beside the pool, and reading some nice (and not particularly sophisticated) novels.
My main goals on holiday are to relax and rest. If I do plenty of relaxing and resting I have achieved those goals. As I am married, my goals are also to ensure my wife has a really good time. Her aims are very different from mine. She really enjoys lots of activity, seeing new things, having new experiences. So we DO book a number of the activities the resort tries to sell us. If we get to see lots of new and interesting things, and have lots of new and interesting experiences, she is happy - and I have then achieved the other goals of the holiday.
This can apply to daily life too. Perhaps you suffer a lot of stress in your life. Maybe, if so, a goal could be identifying what causes stress and eliminating as much of this as possible. It could be removing stress-creating clutter from your life. It could be simply taking more time out to rest and "smell the roses". These goals are just as valid as, and perhaps more so than, the goals of people you see zipping around achieving lots of concrete, tangible goals.
Or it may be that you feel you need to earn more money so that you can plan for a future which allows you to do what you want and have less stress. If so, perhaps starting your own business, and then achieving targets you have set yourself for that business will be the right goals. But never lose sight of the fact that it is not the money or the business itself that is the goal, but what it will allow you to achieve once you have it. Be aware that sometimes you can find ways of achieving those "end goals" without having to get more money. And also be aware that none of us knows how many more years, months, weeks, days, hours of life remain for us. If you spend your remaining years, months, weeks, days and hours just trying to get the money you need in order to achieve your end goals, then you really haven't achieved any of your goals at all! Keep under review at all times what your goals are, whether they are real goals, and whether there might be better ways of achieving them than the ways you are currently pursuing.
Please do not take this as a diatribe against acquiring more money. If you have read many of my articles you will know I am very much in favour of taking actions (the right actions, of course) to acquire more money. But I am also aware that too many of us, myself included, are in danger of confusing "means" and "ends". Acquiring more money is always only a means to an end. If you don't achieve that end, then you haven't really achieved anything at all.
Finally, for anyone reading this who views what I am saying as coming from a very selfish position, achieving goals is not simply about achieving pleasure, gaining things and experiences for yourself without any concern for the happiness or well-being of others. A good, rounded life plan should have both "self-centred" and "other-centred" goals. What exactly is meant by "other-centred" is very individual. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is completely unique to you. It may include making your family and friends happy in various ways. In fact it should. It may also go beyond just making friends and family happy, but making others, including complete strangers, happy as well. Again, in fact it should. You may achieve those "non-centred" goals by spending more of your time, more of your money, or perhaps both.
So, to win the game of life you need to score the right goals. And to score those goals you need to find our where the goal posts are. Get going now by checking you have the right goals and finding the right ways to achieve them!
