How to set and achieve your goals
One of my goals is to provide therapy and sports services to help people overcome obstacles, discover their resilience and endurance and enjoy life as much as possible.
I’ll give you an example of how I’ve thought about my own journey to reaching this goal. Over the years I have broken down the steps to get myself to a place where I could reach my goal.
The steps were:
Getting a doctoral degree
Getting sports coaching certifications
Establishing an office and practice
Networking and connecting with others
Hiring skilled therapists
All the above steps were also broken down into smaller steps so that I could focus on one thing at a time e.g. for my first goal - I may have known that I wanted to work as a psychologist but while I was in graduate school I focused on my course work, internships, doing my dissertation, learning, socializing and having a balanced life.
I focused on enjoying the process and overcoming it’s many challenges, always with the underlying knowledge that I had a longer-term purpose & goal, but with the awareness that I also didn’t know exactly how everything would turn out. This allowed me to stay present, exercise, eat well, take care of myself, while still moving towards my goal. Just attaining one step of my goal took many years – college (four years), graduate school (four years), postdoctoral training (one year), licensure (several months).
Sometimes it’s easy for us to get in the mindset of “When I reach my goal or I’m able to accomplish my life purpose, I will be happy.” “Or when I’m less busy, I’ll exercise…eat better…take a vacation.” But it’s really essential to focus on both the actual process (what you are doing now and how you can live in a way that you are mostly enjoying the day to day stuff because really that’s all that’s guaranteed).
None of us know how long we’ll live so the future is not guaranteed for anyone – even though it is helpful to envision something that keeps us moving towards our goals.
The other component I was able to build to help me reach my goals and life purpose and overcome any challenges and obstacles was connecting with mentors, coaches, therapists, friends, family and people I admired, who were also driven, positive people who wouldn’t hold me back. If you don’t have these people in your life, you can begin to build these connections – reach out to people, even if you don’t think they’ll respond or be available. You never know who will connect with you. There are so many people out there. Persistence and follow through will get you to the right people.
Wednesday 09.07.16Posted by Cory Nyamora, Psy.D., Founder/Director2 Likes Share
