Capital Enhancement Group, Inc.

CAPITAL ENHANCEMENT GROUP

AFTER-RETIREMENT PLANNING

Life Insurance | Anita's Health | Contact Us | Goal Setting | Home Page

Personal Goal System

First of all, it is never too early to begin this lifelong process. While I have some vague recollections of setting goals in fourth grade, and thereafter, my earliest goal setting accomplishments, which I vividly remember having accomplished with much success, began in eighth grade. While the particulars are not relevant, they were very important goals to me, which I wanted to accomplish; I recall they were very specific—easy to measure, and I wanted them!

Having accomplished these specific goals, I became a believer in "visioning" what it was I wanted, and then setting the specific steps to accomplish such. Consequently, at the end of 8th grade when we went over to the high school to be introduced to where we would be attending the following year, I sat in the bleachers listening to the then student body president and decided that when I was a senior I would be the student body president of that high school. I set goals to accomplish that; however, in both 9th and 10th grades I failed along the way with my specific game plan. Even in the 11th grade I had a series of minor “set-backs”, but I continued undaunted and at the end of my junior year I was elected as the up-coming student body president in a school of about 2,000 students; and then re-elected the following semester of my senior year. I also had some goals in athletics that were important to me, and obtained those in similar manner, as the “student body president” goal.

In my college years and early business career I maintained that same enthusiasm for setting and accomplishing goals.

Now, all of that is 40+ years ago, and certainly irrelevant in my life today. But, my attempt is to illustrate that I began learning how to set and accomplish goals early in my life—yet it is never too late—and have continued to do so since then. I can think of no better alternative during my lifetime here on earth.

Now, once again, none of these are important in your life; but it gives you some insight as to my feelings of setting long range, as well as short range incremental goals, to be able to accomplish the far reaching goals that are important in my life. Throughout the ensuing years I have set goals, worked on daily methods to accomplish that goal at hand, and once having achieved it, set other specific and measurable goals.

To save you the details of the teenage decade of my life, albeit goals were always an integral part of my life over that period of time, let me, nevertheless, jump to the year of 1978—married, five children…a challenging time of life. It was then I created a "Master Dream List", which included everything I wanted to accomplish during my lifetime; everywhere I wanted to go; everything I wanted to have or do.

I then categorized the things that were most important to me, which by default then eliminated some things from my "Master Dream List"; and then I went to work. Over the years, I've taken some things off the “Dream List”, and then re-added them back on later. Some things I had never thought of in 1978 were added to my list (but very few). I have found that looking back, for the most part, I have always thought how I even currently think. I am who I am.

All of my personal goals were listed, in a notebook that I still use, in one of the following six categories: physical, mental, spiritual, social, family and financial. Then, to make sure I stayed on track, I began a personal “grading" system, which I have maintained for the last 30+ years. I began grading myself every three months, and still continue to so, from one-to-ten (1-10) in one quarter increments; for example, 7½ on physical, 5¾ on spiritual, 8½ on mental, 8 on social, or whatever. I look at my written goals each quarter, and then compare one quarter against another. And to better enable me to see a favorable direction, or lack thereof, I multiply each “number” times the next one in each of the six areas—to get a quarterly “score”— and then compare the total score against all previous "quarters", which now go back more than 30 years.

For example, if one were to achieve a perfect “10” in each of the six categories, the total score—10X10= 100, X10= 1,000, X10= 10,000…until the total accumulated points would equal 1,000,000. However, I have never come close to any such high-ranking: my highest, in any quarter, was 377,711 points; my lowest score in any one “quarter” tallied 121,597 points. If one were being graded in school each score is well below 50% possible or, in each instance, failing miserable.

I do not compare myself against anyone else, nor have I shared the majority of my "goals" with anyone. Over the years I came to recognize that if I were to even marginally improve in just a couple of areas in my life, it had a dramatic effect on my total score. I will have, on occasion, some numbers in the five range, and on occasion, I have had one or two areas as high as a 9½. Simple math will quickly demonstrate that if you happen to have all 5’s, your total accumulation will be somewhere around 15,000 points. If they were all sixes, you'd be somewhere in the 42,000 range. And all eights would be 240,000, approximately. [Remember all 10’s would tally up to 1,000,000].

By improving even marginally in each category (in one quarter [1/4] increments), I experienced how it dramatically changed my “total” score. I still have lots of room to improve, as can easily be confirmed by my above scores—the very lowest of 121,597 points and the very highest score of 320,711. Very interestingly, but not surprising, when my spiritual and family segments registered the highest individual scores, my total “points” were also at the highest and vice versa.

Well, that's a quick overview on how I have attempted to guide and direct my life over the last 45+ years, starting when I was a young boy in a rather rudimentary system and having improved upon it over the years by reading and then implementing better ideas from people much smarter and better than I am.

Let me conclude by saying that the method used to accomplish one’s goals is not as critical as the necessity of having some type of a “system” that causes you and me to stretch and, thereby, to ultimately achieve the most important things in life that have an eternal consequence.

From my point of view it's important to have some kind of a road map and a system so that one can look back and see either progress or what needs to be better improved. Just having reviewed this with you, which is the first time I've put it down in print, has caused me to reflect a little deeper on all of this and recognize the need to realign some of my goals and aspirations for the continuation of my turn on earth.

Thanks for making me do it: Sherry, Scott, and Mark.

Why I am sharing my personal goal system

I received a couple of letters, at around the same time, almost 2 years ago. One was from a female "seminary" student (Sherry Peterson) I had taught in 1973; the other was from a male "seminary" student (Scott Gillins) I had taught 20+ years later, in 1995.

The first one (Sherry) was inquiring if I still used the same system as I did in 1973 for setting “goals”—and, if so, how had it worked over the last 35+ years. The second student (Scott) inquired about the specific method I used for "goal setting".

I outlined the “system” I have used for almost 50 years (with an adjustment/improvement in 1978, and another one in the mid 80’s) but never sent it to either one of them.

Most recently, I received a "wall posting" on Facebook from a friend (Mark Sherwood) who remembers having seen in my office 20+ years ago a wall poster outlining the “Road to Success”. This communication happened to come at a time when I had just recently thought I should answer Sherry and Scott; so, here goes.