Utel University, a global educational institution, kicked off the year with an empowering event to help individuals set their minds on the right track. The university’s Global Discovery Day, entitled “Make A Choice: Let’s Start and Keep G.O.I.N.G,” took place on January 26, 2023, through the widely-used video conferencing platform, Zoom.
The aim of the event was to help individuals start the new year on the right track by inspiring and empowering them to develop a clear vision for their future and the motivation to achieve it. During the event, attendees were able to benefit from the insights of a distinguished guest speaker, Ms. Christine Del Rosario Bata, a recognized executive life coach and the co-founder and CEO of B&V People Business Co. She shared her personal experience and expertise on the topic of goal-setting and purpose-driven living with the audience.
Ms. Bata provided helpful tips on how to be aware of one’s actions and influence. She also posed guide questions to help participants find their purpose and introduced a simple tool for creating goals to aid in planning for 2023 and beyond.
The Importance of Making Choices
The introduction of Ms. Christine’s presentation highlighted important insights from the book “Make A Choice,” written by Vina Vidal Vicente, the Chief Learning Officer of B&V People Business Co. According to Ms. Christine, everyone has a choice, and by having choices, people must be responsible when crafting and making them. Not all choices will result in positive outcomes, and not everyone will be successful on their first attempt. The positive aspect of making choices, even if they sometimes fail, is that it is a continuous learning process for everyone. However, even though failures can teach lessons, they may also be painful to go through.
Developing a Growth Mindset
As she continued her presentation, Ms. Christine explained that triggers can make people feel certain emotions and expressions. However, these triggers are not always the cause of why people react to things, but rather their mindset. Mindset can either be the problem or sometimes the solution that helps people move forward. She also shared a step-by-step guide on analyzing why people react to things by expanding on the four “E’s”: Event, Experience, Emotion, and Expression.
To further explain the four E’s, Ms. Christine said that there is always an event outside a person’s circle of influence – something that can be seen, heard, smelled, or felt – and automatically, the event will be attached to the person’s experience, which is also their “database.” The experiences a person has had can trigger them to react in a certain way whenever someone tells them something. Then those experiences will produce an emotion – happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, or other basic emotions. It can also be other emotions that are difficult to classify or label, especially when two or more emotions are combined. Lastly, feeling a certain emotion will automatically result in an expression.
She also provided sample situations to illustrate the four E’s further. According to her, people tend to interpret what others tell them based on their experiences. The bad news is that you can’t control what others will do or say to you, but the good news is that you have control over how you interpret their words by setting a proper mindset.
Ms. Christine also emphasized that people have to recognize that as human beings, everyone has their defaults, which can either be thinking that you are a victim or a villain in a situation. But to be a victor, you have to take full accountability for your actions – the personal choice to rise above your circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results: to “see it,” “own it,” “solve it,” and “do it.” In taking accountability, the first thing to do is to make a decision to stop being a victim or villain. Instead of looking for who is at fault in a situation, ask yourself these questions: “what can I not see?”, “how did I contribute to this situation?” and “what can I do to help solve things?”.
Creating Goals Using the G.O.I.N.G Format.
To help the participants in setting their plans, Ms. Christine shared the tool for creating goals that she coined “G.O.I.N.G,” which stands for Goal, Option, Inhibitions, Needs, and Go. The steps are as follows:
- Goals – write the goal in a specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound language;
- Options – anything and everything under the sun that would help you reach your goal;
- Inhibitions – what would stop you from reaching your goal? Anticipate issues along the way;
- Needs – given your anticipated inhibitions, who and what would you need to keep pursuing your goal?; and
- Go! – list five specific actions and target dates to achieve this goal.
Toward the end of the event, Ms. Christine gave advice on prioritizing goals. She said it’s always better to write them down on paper, following the G.O.I.N.G format, but limit it to one page as much as possible, because keeping a long list of goals can be exhausting. She also said that every time you wake up, you have to decide to reach your goal, and it’s important to keep going back to your “why” or the reason why you set that goal in the first place. “Your “why” should be your compass and drive in achieving your goals. You also don’t need to quit the job you have right now to find your purpose because your purpose can be found in whatever you’re doing right now,” she concluded.
The event was attended by participants and students from various countries, including India, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Stay up to date with the latest news and never miss out on the opportunity to join our next life-changing event by following Utel University’s Facebook page for regular updates and announcements. Join our global community and be part of a journey towards self-improvement and fulfillment today!
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