By: Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Sr. Associate Editor, ICN Group
(In the past article, we knew about the importance of goal setting for students in the area of study & career. Today, we will see goal setting in other areas also.)
Health
- Set SMARTER goals in the field of health as per techniques learnt in earlier articles.
- Take care of your nutritional requirements.
- Avoid haphazard eating. Be discriminative while choosing what to eat and what not to eat; and when to eat.
- Exercise daily – Physical & breathing exercising, both are required.
- Meditation for at least 10 minutes will improve your concentration power, memory retention & recollection. It will inculcate habit to see the positivity everywhere. As academic education does not teach you about memory retention and recollection, it has become your own responsibility to develop these faculties. Even if you consider yourself an average student, you can see the miracles within 3 months, if you meditate for even 10-15 minutes daily.
Finance
Childhood is the best time to inculcate the financial habits. We have already learnt about the good financial habits in earlier articles. Here I would just say that inculcate good financial habits from now. It will help you, when you will start earning your own money.
- Inculcate habit of saving something even out of your pocket money.
- Inculcate habit of doing some charity out of your pocket money. Don’t wait for the time when you start earning.
- If your parents have given you a credit card, understand the mechanism of interest calculation to avoid heavy penal interest in case of late payment after expiry of due dates. Read carefully the terms & conditions of your credit card.
- Understand the difference between asset and liability.
- Understand the concept of positive financial leverage.
- Learn the power of compounding so as to get encouraged to start saving as early as possible.
Family & relationships
- Understand your role in the family and get mentally prepared to handle the situation when you start your livelihood.
- See yourself 10 years ahead. You will be in a position to plan as to when you are going to marry and with whom. If you are a boy, you have to decide whether you will opt for a housewife or a working girl. If you are a girl, obviously you won’t plan for a house-husband. Ha ha.
Contribution
As Mr. Barrack Obama puts it, a country is made by the students, who perform & succeed, not by the quitters.
Think what will be your contribution to your country or to the society at large? A vision about contribution will help you to succeed in life and will be a driving force behind your actions. For example, suppose you decide to contribute to the society by becoming a doctor. If your mission is clear in your mind, this clarity will not only help you in getting selected in the entrance examination, this will always be your guiding force till you are alive pursuing your profession. Money will not be the driving force behind your profession. Believe me, if you do good work and become a value creator in the society or your organisation, money is bound to follow you.
Spiritual progress
Make spiritual progress as your goal. Normally at your age, children don’t have spiritual goals but you have already understood, how important it is to increase, or at least maintain, your balance of positive karma. You can observe that as you are enjoying a good life, this automatically means that you are exhausting already accumulated balance of good causes created in the past. You must have to replenish this balance by doing good work for the society. You have to become a contributor, not just a taker. You have to add value to the society as a whole.
(In the next 3 articles, I will touch the very important point i.e. preparation for examinations. I believe that you are enjoying the journey towards the future of your dreams with me. If yes, please stay tuned. Happy G.O.P.T.A.)
Dr. Sanjay Kumar Agarwal, Creator & copyright holder of the concept G.O.P.T.A.© is an Author, Certified NLP Lifestyle Trainer, Strategic Interventionist, Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker ( http://bit.ly/Signature-Workshops-Sanjay-Kumar-Agarwal ) and recipient of Honorary Doctorate of Excellence (Management) by prestigious Young Scientist University, California, USA. He is Founder of ‘Read, Learn & Earn Movement’ and is popularly known among his fans & followers across the globe as ‘Time and Goal Guru’.
