Just recently I was asked how a particular youth service went. My answer was that it bombed. It happens. My friend was disappointed to hear that and asked what made it such a dud. While I could have listed the various elements that went wrong – and there were a number of them – I didn’t. Why? Because you can have plenty of elements go wrong in any project or, in my case, youth service and still have it turn out successful. Right?
Rather than recounting the various glitches of the night I explained it like this. I said, “At the end of the night I want the majority of students who were there to leave saying three things: 1. That was really fun. 2. That was really helpful. 3. I wish my friend had been here for this.” And, as I told him, I don’t think many people at all were saying those things after this particular night.
We’ll all have times that we feel like we missed the mark. Failure is just a part of life. (Even if it is one part we all wish we didn’t have to deal with so much!) But one thing that’s even worse than failure is not knowing whether you’ve succeeded or not.
It’s pretty obvious when we’ve failed and we can beat ourselves up sometimes for that. But we MUST be able to actually enjoy the successes of life when they come along too!
For that to happen, you simply need to have this test for success. Whether it is determining a successful meeting, project, marriage, career, decision, or day, you need to answer this question: What is the clearly stated goal of this?
I knew my youth service had been unsuccessful because it didn’t meet the clearly stated goal. And I know when it is successful because I know what that would look like. You know what your successful day looks like when you have a clear idea of what your goals are for the day. In fact, many successful people say it helps a great deal to list the 3-5 things you hope to accomplish the next day right before you go to bed the night before.
You can know you’re having a successful marriage when you know what your goal for your marriage is. You can know what a successful meeting looks like when you clearly know the intended goal of that meeting. And so on.
This is all rather simple, really. And nothing I’ve said here is all that original at all. Many successful people have said this or shown this through their work. Shad Helmsetter said in You Can Excel in Time of Change, that
“It is the goal that shapes the plan; it is the plan that sets the action; it is the action that achieves the result; and it is the result that brings the success.”
In order for any of us to succeed it all starts with knowing what the heck success would look like. If we don’t know that, then how on earth will we know when we’ve done that glorious thing of actually achieving it?! And even the tiny success of knowing that you’ve achieved what you set out to accomplish with your day today is a victory you deserve to experience.
So what is your clearly stated goal for your day today? What do you hope to accomplish with the remaining hours of this 24-hour day?