In this article, I will break down and share:
(1) what does aspiration mean
(2) the relationship between aspiration and goals + breaking down aspiration into goals
(3) what would happen if one only sets goals without aspiration
(4) breaking down goals into milestones for better execution
Part 1:
Aspiration = a hope or ambition of achieving something = something you are willing to devote your life to, and you may or may not be able to finish it. As you work for your aspiration, you will have achievements along the path.
For example, your ambition is to become a great scientist — this is an endless pursuit that will require a whole life of devotion and commitment. You do not know when you will become a great scientist or whether you can be a great scientist at the end, but you can always research, learn and carry out experiments to prepare yourself for any discovery that could be applied (i.e. achievements).
For me, my aspiration is to teach, to facilitate growth, to help more people achieve their goals and start living the life that they desire now. Whether I am 30 years old or 50 or 80, I would continue to work towards this aspiration, even though I could involve in different concepts or be teaching different subject matter then. As I walk towards my aspiration, I have already obtained several achievements. I set foot on the journey for the aspiration, the achievement is the bonus.
Part 2:
We can achieve our aspiration by setting goals and being more specific. We can decompose the aspiration into 3 year goals, 1 year goals, and monthly goals etc.
Any person’s aspiration can be broken down into specific goals.
Using the same example above, goals that I could have for this year towards my aspiration could be:
(1) teach people how to become a highly efficient learner (to facilitate growth)
(2) teach how to interview to land multiple offers (to achieve goal if you goal is to land a better job)
(3) share how I finally successfully build a habit of daily meditation and teach how you could do the same (if your goal is to improve self-control, emotional management, self-awareness, and health)
(4) teach how to turn knowledge to cash (if your goal is to turn your knowledge and experience to cash)
(5) teach how to turn poverty thinking to prosperity thinking (if your goal is to experience breakthrough financially)
etc.
As you can see, goals should be (i) align with your aspiration (i.e. towards the same direction) and (ii) moving you closer towards your aspiration (i.e each goal should be a step towards your aspiration).
Part 3:
If one set goals without first identifying one’s aspiration, these would happen:
(1) it could be someone else’s aspiration that you are taking as your goal
When we see someone getting the reward that we want, we would be prone to thinking that “this is what i want to do”. In fact, what we want is the reward that someone else got, not what they do. Therefore, you can see many business owners who entered into business for the financial or repetitional reward that someone else is able to obtain. Yet, once they are in business, they do not enjoy any part of it — they hate selling, they do not know what to sell, they do not want to do the work necessarily to move the business forward, they just want the reward.
Another common example is the KOL (key opinion leader) on social media. We could set a goal to be a KOL just because we see others taking a few photos or short videos and be able to obtain free products or financial payments and think that I can do that too (without considering whether this is what I want to do in the long run — because one has not identified his or her aspiration). And immediately they jump into it and started creating photos, contacting brands in an attempt to collaborate, etc. Only after a few months of time and efforts’ investment do they find out that it is not as easy as they think, and since they don’t enjoy the process (they only want the reward that someone else got, not what they do), they abandon the project and give up easily, wasting the few months of time and effort input (and any initial money investment).
The waste of investment — be it time, effort or financial — are valuable and limited resources of one’s life. Yet, I have observed that many people are getting negative return on their investment from these resources when they have mistakenly taken someone else’s aspiration as their goal, which is the reason why they cannot obtain the reward they were looking for and even have to take a step back instead of moving ahead.
(2) you could be short-sightedness
Short-sightedness here does not mean physical issues with the eyes, but a metaphor that one could only see the immediate reward but not the long term, bigger reward.
I have an aunt who bought a property at a below market value from my mum, let’s say $500,000 for the sake of this example. That property is located in good, growing area and of good size. In 10 years, that property will definitely be triple in value (i.e. $1,500,000). My mum sold it to my aunt because my aunt’s business was not doing well and my mum hope to help out her sister, hence the below market value. Nonetheless, to all my family members’ surprise, my aunt turned around and sold the property in the same month — making a small $50,000 profit. My mum was very angry and upset about this — her wish is to help out her sister and she knows the value of this property, but my aunt made use of the sisterhood to make a quick profit. At that moment, both me and my mum knew that my aunt will never be rich because she is “short-sightedness”. Perhaps a $50,000 profit in a month is alluring, but considering that the property can be worth $1,500,000 in 10 years, my aunt does not make a wise financial decision (and she has no urgency for that money really). After selling the property, my aunt spent the money travelling for 6 months and then come back home poor and broke. She reminds me of the “short-sighted” farmer who killed the goose that lays golden eggs.
My aunt can only see the “cheese” in front of her, but she cannot see the much greater and better “cheese” right at the end of this road. This is because she is a person without aspiration, she only focuses on daily goals, weekly goals or monthly goals. How to make more money this month is a question that she often asked. Without any long term direction, she never really succeed in anything. She started a business and closed it in 6 months. Then she found a job and quitted in 6 months. She started another business and failed in 3 months. Then she found a part time job and quitted in 8 months.
Her life is a repetition of time + effort input but little output. That is the effect of only having goals without an aspiration.
Part 4:
We can further break down our goals into milestones.
For example, one of my goals this year is to teach people how to become a highly efficient learner (to facilitate growth). I could break it down to specific milestones for better execution:
(1) write 20 articles on efficient learner
(2) conclude my experience as learning consultant to a Fortune 500 company
(3) publish a book about master learning
(4) read 10 books a month and apply my highly efficient learning principles to share with others the key takeaways of those books
etc.
After decomposing the goal into milestone, we can set weekly and daily milestone to get things done gradually.
To recap, today we talked about:
- Aspiration = a hope or ambition of achieving something = something you are willing to devote your life to, and you may or may not be able to finish it.
- We should break aspiration into goals, and goals into milestones.
- If one set goals without first identifying one’s aspiration, it could be that (1) you are taking someone else’s aspiration as your goal or (2) can cause “short-sightedness”
That’s the end of my sharing this time, hope you benefit from it. See you in the next article!
Connie is an Active Reader, Creator to 1 framework “Sustainable Simplified Soulful”, 3 programs “Rich Brain Installation, Knowledge to Cash, Easy Passive Investing”, Author to 1 book “Design your Day: How to Achieve More in a Day than Most Do in a Year”, Host at “Simplified Business Show” podcast. She shares about book recommendations, new learnings, and principles that she learned and practised in business and life.
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