Accountability Challenge Week 44: What is the Payoff?
One of the most important things that drive us toward the accomplishment of our goals is the benefits or the payoff that we receive by achieving them.
For instance let’s say your goal is to complete a marathon; to run 42.2 km. There are a number of benefits that come to mind when achieve this goal including:
Your fitness level is dramatically improved.
- Increased self-esteem & confidence
- Tremendous sense of accomplishment.
- You become a stronger person-both physically & mentally.
- Knowledge that anything is possible for you.
- Admiration and respect of other people.
- You can now fit into those sexy pair of jeans you’ve been eyeing.
- Increase energy, focus, discipline
- You become a positive role model for other-including friends, family & peers-
With all of these great payoffs you would think that nothing would stand in the way of us reaching every important goal we strive for.
However, I’ve also come to realize in my own journey that we not only enjoy payoffs for reaching our goals, we also enjoy payoffs when we fail to achieve or even set our goals. You might want to read that sentence over again. Yes there are payoffs for not reaching your goals.
Let’s list some of the payoffs for not reaching/setting our goals:
- We get to stay within our comfort zone…After all isn’t it better to be “safe than sorry?”
- We avoid doing something that we perceive to be very difficult.
- We don’t stand out from the crowd-we don’t draw any attention to ourselves.
- We can spend the time that we would have been working onour goals with our families or friends, or sitting on the couch.
- We avoid taking the risk that we won’t be successful in completing our goal.
- We don’t have to face rejection.
- We get to keep our own expectations low.
- We get to hold on to our rationalizations/excuses: “I could have done it if I wanted to-I just didn’t want to”. “I’ll do it when I have more time”.
So we get to enjoy payoffs for accomplishing our goals and payoffs for not accomplishing our goals.
The question becomes which payoffs will you choose?
Next week we will look at the “costs” of goal setting.
Expect Success,
Coach Mark,
Thought for the week :“ The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. It lies in having no goal to reach”. Benjamin Mays
Coach Mark,
Mark Hudon, CFP™, CCS™
Financial Fitness Coach, Certified Cash Flow Specialist™
Creator of The Core Conditioning Program™
