Five Types of Goal-Setters

The New Year is coming and you're probably writing down your New Year's Resolution. The popular ones that people usually write about are love, health and diet to make them feel better about themselves, kicking out of a bad habit (smoking, drinking, stealing someone's belongings, etc.), and money (or anything related to it). You want to achieve these goals for the next year and pray to God (or Xenu, if you're that weird Scientology dude/troll I've argued over the internet) that it would happen unlike the previous years (and also the previous year, and the year after that, and also the last year also after that) where it never came to much fruition. Seriously, though, what really is the point of a New Year's resolution?

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For the formality of knowing that you can plan and be miserable by the end of the year knowing that you can't achieve it?

But before we jot down those words, let's evaluate ourselves first if what type of goal-setter we are. Here are the five types of goal-setters:

1. Obstacle Finder

Ever heard anyone (especially yourself) say these lines: "I can't do it because [insert excuse here]", I'm not going to invest my money because the market might go down", "I have lack of knowledge in [insert lack of knowledge here]", I don't have enough [insert money or abstract noun here] so I can't [insert New Year's resolution here]". Chances are you're focusing more on the obstacle rather than the goal, which would result to stupor inactivity that would lead to you not fulfilling your New Year's resolution.

2. Complainer

These are the goal-setters that like to play the blame game. They usually say something like this: "I'm poor because of the government and I can't do anything about it", "Corrupt politicians are the ones making us poor people poorer" while the complainer sits idle all day drinking beer, "I blame it on my parents because I was born poor" and more annoying banters you probably here from the drunk tambays sitting on the wooden bench of the sari-sari store near you. Although I agree that there are some external factors and people that can cause you to be dissuaded in achieving your goals, it all boils down to the internal factor if you'll let all the negativity sink in to your head and making your goals unattainable. Don't listen to the devil inside your head. Fight it.

3. The Goal-Watcher

Us Filipinos really have this habit of commenting "I'm proud to be Filipino!" on websites after knowing one of our kababayans achieved success internationally in singing competitions, sports, and others. Now, I love my country, sing the national anthem as patriotic as possible in the shower, and happy for the success of our kababayans, but adoration and pride-leeching of the success of others to the point where you consider it as your own is, ummm... for the lack of better term and euphemism "pitiful?". Or maybe I should use pathetic? Hey, am I being offensive now? Okay maybe I should stop. The point here is that focus on achieving your own goals rather than others. Manny Pacquiao wins another fight and you feel giddily excited about it, but does that get you closer to your goals? You're just satisfied that your friend who has now a successful business (that was something you wrote in your New Year's resolution also) while you sit there in stupor silence. If your goals relate to that person who found success, then why not use it as a source of inspiration for you to act upon and not just be smiling creepily and be lazy about it.

4. Mr./Ms. Planner

Imagine yourself writing your goals for this 2015 in a sheet of paper. You put down "I'm going to be rich." So you educate yourself in real estate, stock market, and even Forex.You have all that knowledge but you can't do it because [insert reason here]. The problem here is that you have all the plans set out and the sufficient education for you to do it, but you just can't execute it. You're just in the level of planning (hence the name Mr./Ms. Planner if you didn't get it right away). To put it short: Education without Execution! If you change that "without" to "with", then you become (see below).

5. Mr./Ms. Clarity

When you're this type of goal-setter, then, no doubt you have educated and acted on achieving your goals. You have practiced Wisdom not knowledge. Your chances of achieving your goals is higher than those of the other types. You set out a goal of investing one hundred thousand pesos in a year, and you do your best even through the struggles and hardships.

Now, which goal-setter are you? And which goal-setter would you rather be?

Post is inspired by Series 2 of The Wealth Academy.