Living Well 60+ November – December 2014 | Page 15

NOV/DEC 2014

15

You will miss 100 percent of
the shots you never take.”
—Wayne Gretsky

Goal Setting
Start thinking of what you want to
accomplish in 2015
by Charles Sebastian, Staff Writer

“You will miss 100 percent of
the shots you never take,” says
Wayne Gretsky, perhaps the bestknown hockey player in history.
During his 20-season career,
Gretsky broke 61 records, and he
still holds the one for the most
points scored. Gretsky dreamed
from a young age about conquering the National Hockey League
and becoming a star player. Then
he went about doing everything
necessary to accomplish that goal
– and to make a lot of goals.
While setting clear goals can at
times be daunting, the alternative
is to drift. If you do so, you will
not experience growth and you
will not have a standard by which
to gauge progress toward your
goals.
Some goals are simple: I want
to lose 20 pounds. I want a red
Mustang. I want to graduate from
college. While goals such as these
obviously require some modicum
of work and planning, others goals
are more elusive. For instance,

many students enter college with
the express purpose of getting
a degree because someone told
them they needed to, but then
they discover they’re not really
interested in the subject they’ve
chosen for their major. Longer
years and larger dollars are spent
on these indecisive moments.
Sometimes you finally reach the
half-hearted goal and realize it was
not what you wanted. Then you
have to start all over again.
Working from Aristotle’s observation that “Purpose can cause
action,” Edwin A. Locke applied
scientific study to goals in the
1960s. Locke showed the causal
link between goal-setting and
increased performance. Today,
major corporations have goal-setting sessions with their employees.
Group goals are set for teams all
over the world, and goals are made
individually daily.
Writing down goals is a common way to commit to them.
Once something is written, it
sinks in more deeply; the subconscious chews on its content in a

more steady manner.
Don’t stress if you don’t achieve
your goals by the date you set.
This is another a reason people
avoid goals: having to deal with
the disappointed feeling of not
making a deadline. The flexible
mind knows you reset the deadline and go on, thereby keeping
your achievements moving forward. Missing a deadline is not a
reason to get stuck or discouraged.
Finally, realize if you do not

reach out to goals, they will come
to you. A ship at sea without
a compass, without charts is
drifting. Sooner or later, the ship
will probably happen into some
destination (if it doesn’t capsize
first), and it may or may not be a
destination the ship’s crew wanted.
Goals allow us to keep the ship on
course, to know where we are and
where we’re going at all times and
to achieve the original intent of
getting there.

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