How to Set and Fulfill Your Goals

By Divine Grace R. Segunla

Do you know that 97% of adults do not have goals? No wonder thousands or even millions of people die everyday without living their lives to the fullest. Sadly, they were victims of circumstance.

It’s not their fault that they were born poor, grew up uneducated and underprivileged. One could rant and complain about how unfair life is day after day after day. Well, it really is unfair. But the reality is nothing will change in your life unless you take actions now. Your circumstances will not change on their own. It’s in your hands to change things around you. You are the author of your life story.

If we look at history, hundreds of successful men and women started with nothing. Abraham Lincoln referred to by former Secretary of War Stanton as “the most perfect ruler of men that the world has ever seen” and probably America’s greatest president that ever lived started as a grocery clerk. He was poverty-stricken and uneducated but that didn’t stop him from reading law books he bought for fifty cents from a household plunder. Andrew Carnegie is the famous 19th century steel tycoon who gave away $365 million. He was nothing but an impoverished young man from Scotland who started to work at 2 cents per hour. Oprah Winfrey is the most powerful celebrity in the world today as declared by Forbes for earning $260 million last year. It wasn’t a walk in the park for Oprah. She was born out of wedlock to a poverty-stricken young woman. She was sexually abused by a number of male relatives and her mother’s friends. In honor of my hero, my grandfather, let me share his story. Juanito Segunla married at a very young age and had eight children. Due to lack of education, the only job available is selling vegetables in the market. But that didn’t stop him from supporting all eight children to finish college education and even his grandsons (and daughters). He was also able to build his dream house for his family.

There are hundred of success stories of men and women who started with barely anything. They were ordinary people just like you and me. But what makes them different? What makes them great?

It’s their ability to see where they’re going. You cannot go anywhere unless you have a destination in mind. It’s their ability to dream. It’s their ability to change their circumstances. It’s their ability to set goals. They knew what they want in life.

There are no limits to the goals we can achieve in life. If we commit our mind, our heart and our life we can achieve just about anything.

I hope I made my point across. We need to set goals so we can get started in life. Here is a guideline of setting goals I got from Zig Ziglar.

1. Find the Goal
No one can do this for us. It is our greatest responsibility to discover what we want to achieve in life. Take some time and think it over. Get a notebook and write down everything you want to accomplish in your lifetime. You may want to retire young and spend the rest of years traveling around the world or you just want a small business. It doesn’t matter whether it’s big or small as long as it is yours.

2. Overcome Obstacles to the Goal
Do not be alarmed when obstacles arise to hinder you from fulfilling your goals. Obstacles and challenges are part of life. You will never become truly successful unless you overcome them. Obstacles are life’s way of teaching us the indispensability of perseverance to our success.


3. Keep Your Eye on the Goal
Zig wrote, “Life is a series of adjustments always keeping the goal in sight.” There will be unexpected events and disappointments that may make us lose sight of the goal. It is a conscious effort on our part to conduct progress checks and continual review of our goals.

4.Set an Attainable Goal
Florence Chadwick was the first woman in history to swim (20 miles) the English Channel from France to England in 1950. She failed on her first attempt. The point is we need to realize that failure is part of the equation of success. We cannot do everything on our first try. When you fail the first time around, just get up and do it again.

5. Have Faith in the Goal
I believe this is the most critical guideline in setting and fulfilling our goals. We cannot just rely on wishful thinking. We must believe with all of our heart, mind, strength and soul that it can be done. We must develop the ability to see ourselves in a position of fulfillment.


Let me leave you with a quote from Tom Landry. He said,

“Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how will you go about achieving it and staying with the plan.”