Goal Setting - prose

Goal Setting

Kris Shrikkanth, an experienced sports person is happy to share with you his winning formula in the process of goal setting.

1. Very often in life, you find yourself at a crossroads. The most common example taken is that of Alice in Wonderland, a children's classic written by Lewis Carroll. Alice comes to a crossroads during her travel and she finds a cat sitting there. She asks the cat, “Which road do I take?” You know what the response is? The cat says, “Where do you want to go?” When you make a career choice, you may want to take up engineering, you want to get into medicine or you want to take up a job. You must know what you want to do.

Have you found yourself at a crossroads?

2. I am a very firm believer in one thing. You will ultimately become what your innermost and deep-rooted desire is. Of course, desires change for a person from time to time. But your deep rooted desire is what motivates you.

Which is the most important step in the goal setting process?

3. During my third year or fourth year of engineering, suddenly I had this desire to play cricket, first play for Tamil Nadu, then play cricket for India. Again, it was in my subconscious mind that I wanted to play for India.

4. Believe it or not, I played for India. That was the deep-rooted desire. As you all know, we won the 1983 World Cup. But after the 1983 World Cup, unfortunately, my form deteriorated. Sometime later, a stage came where in, within about six to seven months of the 1983 World Cup, my form was so bad, they really even thought of dropping me from the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy team. That was the stage I was in... This was it! But then, something kept on telling me“Don’t worry, Cheeka… you will make it. You will make a comeback in the Indian team, you will be a successful cricketer". There was this little voice... an inner voice that kept on telling me.

5. That time, it was a Ranji Trophy match in Coimbatore, and I still remember the events very clearly. Today’s famous commentator L. Sivaramakrishnan and a few others were all sitting in a room and chatting. We were all having some fun. Then, suddenly I told them, “Guys, take it from me - in five years' time, I‘ll captain India”. This was way early in 1984. They thought I’d gone mad. Here is a guy struggling to find a place in the Tamil Nadu team. He says that in five years’ time, he will captain India, and with people like Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath all established cricketers there, and this guy says, he is going to captain India. But I said, “Boss, you wait and watch. In five years’ time, I'll captain India.”

What made Srikkanth keep trying to realise his dream?

6. As I said, rewind your life. You think about it. There must have been small and big desires. Always there will be something within you, speaking to you, right? You will make it! You will succeed. As long as the inner feeling is there that you will succeed, just continue trying. Continue doing it. Don’t worry about failure. You will succeed.

What kind of attitude helps us to succeed?

7. When you talk about deep-rooted desire, what did Sachin say, even after winning the 2011 World Cup? Sachin said that his deep-rooted desire was to win the World Cup. Don’t forget, this man had all the records in the world.

8. He had got everything in the world that one would want as a batsman and as a cricketer; but still, his deep-rooted desire was to win the World Cup one day and be a part of a World Cup-winning team for India. That ultimately happened. Maybe, it happened after a long time. But still, he himself admitted that this is the best thing that ever happened to him in cricket. Don’t forget, my dear friends, when you have a deep-rooted desire and when you consciously work towards it, you will achieve it.

9. Passion is the key word. When I say passion, you do something with your heart and soul. When you do something with passionate interest, you’ll always be successful in life. When you put your heart and soul and you are passionate, you start enjoying what you do. And when you enjoy what you do, ultimately you do everything in the right manner. That’s what I mean by passion. Without passion, please don’t do anything. There are times when you are down and out and when you just don’t feel like doing something; but, nevertheless you just do something for the sake of doing. Never ever do that. The moment your mind is not there, just stop doing something, take a break and come back, because whatever you do in life, please do it with passion.

When will you be successful in life?

Why should you enjoy what you do?

10. The best example I can think of for doing something with passion is Sachin Tendulkar. Just imagine, this guy has got all the records you want in international cricket. He has played the maximum number of test matches, one-day matches; he has got all the runs and all the records with him. But till his retirement, whenever he played, he played with great passion. That's why Sachin was so successful.

What is the secret of Sachin Tendulkar’s success?

Keep in Mind!

11. Here are some ways to make sure that the goals that you are working on are things that you want and not just things that sound good.

12. Set goals on a yearly basis. Set smaller goals and achieve the smaller goals, and go on a step-by-step basis. When you go on a step-by-step basis, as I told you with live examples, it becomes easier to achieve your goals. Time management is important when you want to achieve your goals. If you work towards it in a very conscious manner, with passion, by putting your heart and soul into whatever you want to be, you will get it.

·        Write your goal with positive

·        Write your goal in complete detail.

·        Make sure your goal is high enough.

13. The next step in the goal setting process is to identify the benefits of achieving that goal. Make sure that you’re going towards where you actually want to go.

What are the steps in the goal setting process?

How do goals become easy to achieve?

14. Make sure that you take an informed decision when choosing your career. Let us see what happens when you are choosing your career.

Choosing a career

15. There are lots of factors which actually influence you when you are trying to choose your career.

They are your

·        educational background,

·        parental infl uence,

·        teachers and mentors,

·        the environment that you are in.

·        personal aspirations and

·        peer pressure.

We need to have proper career orientation. Your personality plays an important role in choosing the type of career you want. Choose something you enjoy and really want to do and you will be successful.

About the author

Kris Srikkanth, former Indian Cricket Team Captain, is a member of the 1983 world cup winning team. He was the former chairman and senior selection committee of the 2011 World Cup Winning Indian Team. He works as a broadcaster and expert commentator with various sports and news channels and is well-known for his honest, straightforward comments, often laced with humour.