Dear Grandchildren:
I can’t believe this summer is about over and we’re ready for the beautiful time of fall, school, and football. I know Gavin is ready for football!
Today’s letter is about setting goals and of course, your company. Setting goals is easy but accomplishing them is the hard part. We all have desires or things we’d like to accomplish so what’s the big deal about setting goals?
Setting and achieving goals are the best ways to measure your life’s progress. This fall, Gavin is playing on Gaylord’s eighth-grade football team. He could say, “What I expect this season is just to play football with my friends, only do what the coach expects, and enjoy the experience.” There’s nothing wrong with those goals, and they may give him a few months of enjoying football with his buddies, but the results would probably be meager with that attitude.
First of all, your goals must be yours. This sounds obvious, but a common mistake people make is to allow others to set their goals. For Gavin to excel in football, he has to tell himself, “Do I really want to play football for the Gaylord Blue Devils? Am I ready to get my body in shape? Am I willing to invest the time to learn my role as a team member? Am I ready to feel some pain when I end up at the bottom of the football pile? Am I ready to sacrifice some of my Thumb Lake fun for sweaty football practices? For Gavin to be happy and successful playing football, he must decide what goals to set.
Secondly, your goals must be specific and measureable. Here’s where most people stop– it’s a main reason why people never achieve what they’re capable of–they never define what they want to achieve.
Back to Gavin, he has a chance to set both team and personal goals. His team goals would be that the team reach — depending on their experience and competition– a certain number of wins for the season. And each area — offense, defense, and special teams — would set department goals that synergistically help the team’s overall goals.
Since Gavin wants to play quarterback, he can set personal goals. Obviously, his goals would include wins for the season and maybe pass completions and total yards gained in passes and runs.
The next decision would be, “How am I going to better achieve these goals? What could I do individually beyond regular practices to accomplish these goals? Could I make extra practice time to throw passes to certain teammates (maybe 50 to 250 each day)? Could I memorize the playbook early to be ready for the first practice? Could I do extra exercises to prepare my body for the wear and tear?
For Gavin, you, and I, we could choose to drift along, aimlessly hoping we’ll be successful and hoping one day, good fortune will fall into our lap with little or no effort on our part. But life doesn’t work out that way!
Over the next few months, I’d like to talk more about setting and accomplishing your goals and why I believe this discipline is so important. We’ll follow Gavin and his progress as Gaylord’s quarterback for the eighth grade team.
Like all of you, Gavin is a special kid who’s passionate to accomplish big goals in his life. I believe as a young man, Gavin already shows some terrific leadership skills.
Leaders ask others around them, “What can I do to help you succeed?” They understand that by helping others, they’re benefiting themselves.
Zig Ziglar once said, “You can get everything you want if you will just help enough other people to get what they want.”
Service is an important investment that pays in more ways than just financially. It pays in character development, social influence, and relationship growth. Being a great team player says to the team, “What can we do together.” It’s a win-win scenario.
That’s why I’m excited for Gavin to grow as a football player on the Gaylord team and as a young man in the game of life.
In closing remember, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me!”
Until next month,
I love you!
Grandpa