Begin with End in Mind: - Setting Your Learning Goals. / Decide What Books You Will Read This Year

Don’t start this lesson without doing action steps mentioned in previous lessons. Make sure you have read the case studies. It will give you right perceptive about this course and what is possible, if you do all the lessons I share in this course.

I believe by now you have lot more clarity about what this course is about and what you are going to learn etc.

Let’s get started with this lesson….

Lesson 1: - Set your learning goals. 

I am practising these skills for more than 10 years. If you ask me what is the biggest mistake I made during the process of learning these skills? The answer would be not setting up a clear goal. 

Let me explain……

I learnt speed reading mainly from books.  I was excited, when I saw a book on speed reading for the first time.  I never knew such concept existed.

In the first book I read on speed reading, the first chapter was about calculating my reading speed, just like the way I had started. If I remember correctly my initial reading speed was little over 200 wpm. I was motivated to improve my reading speed. I became obsessed with speed reading. I read all the books I could get my hands on. I listened to all the audios and watched many videos on the process. Mention a course on speed reading and memory, I would have heard about it and may be even finished it.

Mistake I made during the process was I never stopped for a few minutes and thought what I want to achieve from these skills or why I want to learn these skills. If I had done this, I would have saved 100s of hours and my life would have been lot easier.

Habit 2 of seven habits of highly effective people is “Begin with end in mind”. If you don’t have a goal, then how would you know that you have achieved it or reached your destination?

Speed reading can be very addictive. There is always a scope for improvement. There is no end to it.  It doesn’t mean that we have to spend rest of our lives reading speed reading books and read more and more speed reading books. It is not productive. Even now, I feel I haven’t achieved my true potential. You have to set an initial goal which is specific and tangible, so you know when you have achieved it and set a new goal once you achieved an initial goal.

This lesson isn’t about teaching you how to set goals. You can get many courses on goal setting. This lesson will help you to set up a learning goal which would be a foundation from now on. We would revisit your goal many times during the coaching. Below are some thought provoking questions that I want you to answer and put it in writing….

Let’s get started ………….

1. What specifically do you want to achieve from this coaching? Here the word specific is important. I want you to think in specific terms and not in vague.Make sure your goal is specific, concrete and tangible. It should be realistic and attainable. If you do all the lessons regularly, you can finish the course in 3-4 months, set an initial goal for 3 months. We would come back to this goal at the end of this course.

   I want to read faster is not specific. How much faster? I want to read at 400 wpm is specific.
   I want to improve my concentration is not specific. How many minutes you want to sit to read without losing focus on what you are reading?

2. Where are you now? What is your present position / present reading speed?
3. How will you know when you have achieved the goal?
4. What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do?  - Imagine you have achieved your goal and how will your life be different now from the past.  Write as many changes you can think of, it will be a huge motivating factor to work hard on your goal and complete the course.

Here, the key is your goal should be specific and tangible. I want you to put your learning goals in writing.

Action steps:

1. Answer each question and put it in writing.
2. I recommend you to share your goals below and in your journal. It would give you extra push to work harder and take responsibility. Other members would also be motivated from your goals as well as motivate you during the process.

~Srinivas Reddy

P.S. Don’t take this lesson for granted. It would add huge value in long term and save 100s of hours.

I know the value of this lesson because I had never done this while beginning.

Only questions:

1. What specifically do you want to achieve from this coaching? Key: you goal should be specific, concrete and tangible. It should be realistic and attainable.
2. Where are you now? What is your present position?
3. How will you know when you have achieved the goal?
4. What will this outcome get for you or allow you to do?