Setting a target somehow depends upon the parents. If your parents didn’t set targets for you, didn’t talk about targets, didn’t encourage you to set your own targets, and didn’t talk about people outside the family circle who had targets and were moving toward a higher level of achievement in their life, then you very likely grew up with the thought that targets are not even a part of usual existence. This is the case for the majority of people. The important reason why people don’t set targets is because they don’t know how to do it? One of the greatest tragedies of the educational system is that you can receive 17 to 20 years of education in your schools and never once receive a single lecture on how to set targets.
Yet we find that in certain schools where target setting programs have been introduced since primary grade, young people become energized about target setting—even if the target is only to add to the scores by few per cent over the course of a month. Children become so energized about achieving targets that by the third or fourth grade, they are hardly ever absent. They are keyed up about themselves and about their future lives. So push your children to set worthwhile, sensible and realistic targets from an early an early age.
The next reason why people don’t set target is fear of failure. The fear of failure is caused by unhelpful criticism in early childhood and is manifested, in maturity, in the fear of criticism by others. Many people hold back from setting worthwhile targets because they have found that every time they do set a target, somebody steps up and tells them that they can’t get it, or that they will lose their energy, money or waste their time. Each of us is strongly influenced by the opinions of those around us; one of the first things that you must learn when you start setting targets is to keep your target confidential. Don’t tell anyone about your targets.
Frequently, it’s the fear of criticism that, more than any other single factor stops you from target setting in the first place. So keep your targets to yourself, with one exception. Share your targets only with others who are dedicated to achieving targets of their own and who really want you to be successful and achieve your targets as well.
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