Tag Archives: goal setting

‘Tis the Season to be Stupid, falalalala, lalalala

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(Republished and amended from Dec 2016)

“To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions.”

William James PSYCHOLOGIST, PHILOSOPHER, AUTHOR

Funny, isn’t it? Right now, with 20 days to go, I am positive that millions of people are making their rules for 2022, applicable from Day 1. (Okay, maybe not so much the Chinese, who have a different New Year.) They plan to diet, exercise, rise early, watch less telly, etc. Or maybe that’s just me. Again. Every year since ever.

Honest intentions, I have no doubt.

Next funny thing. Having promised to eat better, exercise etc. etc., they (we)  rationalise that because this is the season of celebration (and the conventional wisdom for celebration is to eat and drink to a massively stupid – yes, stupid – degree),  the fact that we are definitely starting to live better on Jan 1st means we can justify doing the exact opposite.

And I am just as stupid as most of you, in that regard. (Not as stupid as those who think it’s okay to do it FROM New Year until Christmas. Love to those alcoholics who will give up booze for a month to prove they’re not.)

William James, the ‘father’ of psychology (not psychiatry, different science), sought to identify the proper prescription for a successful life. By successful, he spoke not of fame and fortune, but of greater personal effectiveness and integrity, where one lived in accordance with one’s values and therefore did not suffer the debilitation of depression, stress and guilt. His prescription was to advise people throw themselves ‘flamboyantly’ into their primary objective – living life with the peace of knowing that what they are doing is good for them, good for others, and which serves a greater good. Even if that service only means becoming a role model for others.

Bear with. You have a conscience. It may be teeny weeny, or it may be a big bu66er. But you have one. When you fail to act in accordance with its sage advice, you feel a soupçon or a bucketful of guilt, depending upon its capacity and your willingness to listen to it. What you do with that knowledge is the difference between achieving James’ definition of success and living a life of quiet desperation where you spend every evening wondering where the day went and why you haven’t achieved what was on your principled list of things-to-do.

How do I know? I know because that has been a tendency* in my life. A lot of my friends seem impressed with the amount of ‘stuff’ I do and the miscellaneous blobs of service for which I am known support their belief, but I know I could be a doing a whole lot better.

And with few exceptions, so do my readers.

Right now, those close to me privately and professionally are all preloading every conversation around the cake/biscuit barrel/sweet tin with ‘well, it is Christmas’, then stuffing their face knowing how daft they’re being. And (here’s the annoying part), after Christmas they’ll all go on a diet and bring their left-over cr4p into work. Thanks a bunch.

Starting today is key. It’s not easy, but it is the only truly sound route to getting what you want, and getting it soon enough to enjoy it.

My advice, therefore, is to follow William James’ advice. But be a little bit careful with the ‘flamboyantly’ bit. I think he meant do it ‘big time’, not dressed in a pink tutu, wearing a Stetson and covered in Braveheart make-up.

*Does ‘tendency’ mean absolute headlong throwing-yourself-into-dedicated-idiocy?

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One step back – a thousand steps forward.

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

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The future can dictate your past – if you let it. Thus spake Tony Robbins, generally accepted to be the world’s  most famous and top performance coach (despite what other coaches claim). His intention is to tell you not to live in the past, but the subtext is not to live in a failure-based past. In a similar vein, many coaches promote the idea of making sure your past is gone – truly gone – before you move along, there.

The reason is that even when you are future focused, there is still something you have done that is incomplete, or you feel an emotional, nagging feeling that something might not be truly over. Either way, not dealing with it can be self-defeating. Not always, but sometimes.

Several writers do suggest that when preparing your future, you look at the past in depth. For some writers, the objective is purely forward focused in the sense that they ask, “What did you do as a child that really made you feel happy?” and then suggest you use the answer as a guide to what to do next. (If that went as well as suggested there’d be thousands more spacemen and no chiropodists.) The other motive for analysis of your past is to simply see what you can learn from it, and to use that knowledge as part of the planning.

In either case, the gazing backwards can identify some things you wish you’d done but hadn’t; some things you wish you hadn’t done but did; and some things that you started but didn’t finish even though you should have, or wanted to. The benefits are clear.

Incompletes, as Jack Canfield calls them, will play on your mind for ever. If your reminiscing identifies some incomplete that you can do something about, organise your time so you can do it. If you’re reminded about an offence you wish you could take back, send an apology or simply let it go. If there was a goal you still have time to achieve, get to it. If there is a lesson to be learned from what was done or was not, write it down and learn from the experience.

Once you’ve looked at what went wrong, look at what went right and ask similar questions. Everything that happens to us, teaches us something. Covey and other put it something like this – experience has no motive. It teaches us lessons we need to learn without judgement. It has no bias or ulterior objective. Experience just ‘is’. It is a valuable teacher.

I therefore recommend analysis of the past with an open-mind.

As Jinny Ditzler puts it her excellent book, ‘Best Year Yet’, ask yourself “What were my disappointments, what were my accomplishments, what did I learn and (importantly) what am I going to do about it?” Find the answers, because therein lie the plans you need to make and the actions you need to take in the near to intermediate future if you are going to have a sense of contentment when it all comes to an end.

Don’t be led by other people’s experience and advice. Listen to it, consider it, decide whether or not it is something you need to act upon, but don’t blindly follow someone else’s plan – their plan is based on their needs, values and experiences. Their plan is based on their disappointments, accomplishments, lessons and wants. Not yours.

What have you/haven’t you done that you need to do or let go? What are you going to do about that discovery?

Do It Now.

NEVER Mind the Gap. (I’m proud of this one….)

23 Thursday Jan 2020

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I’ve been cogitating about another space. Not the one between stimulus and response, where we can choose that response and, in that choice, choose wisely or otherwise. There is another Gap, which must be important because I used a capital ‘G’.

The self-help (ugly term) industry is designed to help people close the Gap between ‘where they are and where they want to be’, as Jack Canfield trademarked it. This is the Gap of which I write.

In my latest rewrite The Three Resolutions, which I regularly review as my understanding of the contents improve as my experiences and studies dictate, I reminded myself of a time when I was providing personal development to police colleagues, and in one of my lectures I drew a diagram which illustrated the Gap. It looked a bit like this

The Gap

and was also intended to show how some of us have a HUGE gap between where we are and where we (careful…..), some of us are lucky and have a smaller Gap to close.

And it struck me, counter-intuitively, that the larger that Gap the easier it was to make it smaller, whereas once the Gap narrowed to a sliver its closure was harder to achieve. Which meant I had to figure out why this was.

My conclusion was this: when we start out in that HUGE Gap, we believe we have a million things wrong about our lives that need correction. As time passes, we tick off the faults which are easy to correct, and each closure has a massive effect on our lives. But as we get ever closer to our ideal ‘self’ we start to address the harder challenges, the ones which cause us the most stress, the ones we avoided earlier but which are also, by their very nature, the biggest of our problems.

But here’s the kicker. Despite that remaining Gap and the challenges it represents, we have become better individuals through making the Gap that much smaller. But we tend to forget how far we’ve come. We get so focused on the last 10 yards we forget we’ve travelled miles and miles.

Now and then, I suggest, look at what you were and compare it to what you are.

Not just in terms of wealth and professional standing, but in terms of knowledge, relationships, freedom and some other immeasurables. Are you better than you were at 25? Are you better after closing some of the Gap? In which case, CONGRATULATE YOURSELF.

Then set about that last bit in the knowledge that you are more capable of closing it now than you ever were. Celebrate the fact that you even know that the Gap exists, because penny to a pound you didn’t recognise it when you were younger/less experienced/alone or skint.

Yes, there may be one or two challenges left, and they may be the hard ones, but what have you got now that reflects your progress?

In 1995 I was a sit-at-the-back, let it happen of guy. Now I always sit at the front, I can think and write at a level I would never have thought possible even in my 30s, I have pursued things rather than waited for them.

So I’m a bit broader in the beam than I ought to be.

My family loves me and I love them. I am financially secure. I can read, write, count and argue with people and yet happily lose an argument.

Yup. Today, I like me. Like yourself, see how far you’ve come. Then gird your loins for the next bit……

Did it all go to plan? Did you HAVE a plan??

31 Tuesday Dec 2019

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That’s that, then. In a few hours we’ll be celebrating the end of 2019 and the start of a new set of numbers, the Twenties. And some New Year’s Resolutions will begin their Mayfly-long existence of ‘a day’. ‘Twas ever thus.

Recently you will recall I posted about the planning process, which included an Evaluate the Week activity, where you review that past 7 days to identify what went well, what you learned and what you’ll do next time. (It all gels when you look deeply into what Covey wrote about personal planning, productivity and execution instead of decrying it.)
Today, there’s an opportunity to do your Annual Review, looking at the past 365 days to see – well, you know.

What went well? I got a new job and I was learning as I executed, which was fun. I restarted my daily blog. I maintained qualifications and memberships that helped me to serve others, and everyone I served obtained the objectives my service was intended to support. I had fun learning to enhance those abilities, too. I’d say I achieved 60-70% of what I intended.

What did I learn? I learned that some people have more than one face. That I am not perfect but I can stand up and accept my failings. That some things aren’t worth fighting for. I learned that I have some excellent friends, supportive and non-judgmental. And I have learned that I can’t keep pretending that I can start eating and exercising well ‘tomorrow’. I need to start NOW. (Again.)

And what will I do in the future? To be frank, that’s probably what today will be about (as it is for so many), even though some goals have been telegraphed by the lessons I learned in the last months.

This is, of course, the brief version of a review. I propose you use the Review to look at things like your sense of purpose and meaning, your intellectual life, service to others, your finances, your relationships, and anything else which comes to mind. Ask the three evaluation questions and discover for yourself what the next year is going to ask of you.

I’ll be making an Annual Plan of objectives/outcomes/goals that should keep me occupied and productive. All of which, I hope, will make me better in the round. And as I will be inviting my own circle of family and friends to help me in my pursuit of ‘success’ as I define it, I will be doing my best to help them do the same.

I’ll be utilising the time I have – turning 58 and seeing so many famous people croaking at 79 makes you feel time’s a-wasting – and using my time management skills to best effect. I’ve invested enough time and money is developing those skills, after all.

What’s your plan?

And if you haven’t got one, enjoy helping someone else with theirs. You might as well be doing something useful, even if someone else benefits more than you.

Or you could benefit together?

Just a thought……..

You ONLY score Own Goals.

04 Wednesday Dec 2019

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“Why aren’t I sticking to, and achieving my goals?”

Been there? Done that? Me too.

This week I are been mainly studying First Things First, as Jesse would say*, and last night I was reading about the continuity of goal planning.

(Briefly, and as many a corporate employee would understand it, continuity in goal-planning means ‘Values dictate Mission dictates Roles dictates Goals dictates Action.’)

Covey was illustrating how often people fail to come through on their goals they set because they don’t truly understand themselves, a subject he also touched upon his The Three Resolutions chapter in Principle-Centred Leadership (1991). By extension, if you are not sure what your role is (at work or in any other context), you are already hampering any potential achievement.

This all struck a chord with me. There are some goals I have executed upon – and executed well. For example, my time management book and The Three Resolutions were the result of a disciplined effort over quite a period of time. My advanced driving qualifications and the subsequent opportunities to teach others that arose from achieving that goal are also a bit of a source of smugness. The jobs I got and the professional qualifications I have – all the result of a goal set and the work done.

But there are so many goals I have made over the years that simply never get ‘done’. Or they do get ‘done’, but only temporarily.

Why is that?

I suspect it is because I can’t answer the following question in the right way. Covey asked me to ask myself

“Do I really want to do it? Am I willing to pay the price? Do I have enough strength to do it? Do I accept the responsibility for my own growth? Am I settling for mediocrity when I could be achieving excellence? Am I blaming and accusing others for my own inability to set and achieve goals?” (Covey, Stephen R.. First Things First . Mango Media. Kindle Edition.)

In this order – No. No. No. I would normally, but not here. Yes. Yes. (Ouch.)

Charles R. Hobbs also touched upon this area when he wrote how Ben Franklin set 13 values-based goals. He’d originally set 12 but asked a Quaker friend his opinion on those. The Quaker suggested he add ‘Humility’ as a value, and act accordingly. In his autobiography, Franklin wrote how this was the hardest value/goal to achieve, and he’d frequently failed to achieve anything other than the appearance of humility.

The reason for his failure? The value, and the goal – weren’t his. They were suggested by A.N. Other.

The goals I fail to achieve are the ones I am supposed to want to achieve. They’re the ones espoused by all the coaches in the civilised world – health and fitness. Even when I have achieved them – got to the target weight, trained and run the long distances – I have drifted back to largesse once the goals’ metrics were achieved.

Achieving ‘other peoples’ goals’ is rarely sustainable. (Which means when I see a colleague is ‘delighted’ to have been awarded a career-threatening project, I cringe. I always noted people had to be ‘sent’ to domestic violence units but volunteered for fraud squads.)

That said, if you can genuinely, smilingly and pleasantly commit yourself to achieving that other person’s goal because doing so satisfies your own values, then I happily salute you. While jealous.

So in order to achieve someone else’s goal, you have to find a way to make it your own. Not by force, mind. The connection between values and goal has to be genuine, or it just won’t sit right and get done well, if at all.

Today, try this: See which of your values support – or even undermine – your personal and work goals.

You might find out something that you really need to know.

 

*You have to be British and over 40

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We don’t ‘live’ in years – why do we goal-set in that unit?

11 Wednesday Apr 2018

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This is a Rant.

Most goal-setting advice tends to focus on the setting of 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-year goal plans. Best Year Yet and YB12 go for a 1-year plan as their core idea while business-related goal-setting advice tends to go to the max. In general, all goal-setting programmes promote the setting of a long-term goal supported by medium- and short-term ‘goalettes’ that result in the longer-term goal being achieved bit by bit.

There is nothing wrong with any goals programme I have ever seen, in that regard.

What I DO find difficult is this: life has a tendency to bu66er up those plans. I think that there are two reasons for that.

Of late, I have committed to the provision of various services – speaking club, professional Institute, driver mentoring. Those services are over and above my proper job, which takes up three days a week. Those additional services take up half-days at a time of what’s left – and that’s just execution and exclusive of any preparation time.

To a large extent, ‘D: None of the above’ is the answer I would give to the question ‘Which of the following represents action taken in pursuit of your personal goals?’ The time I spend on planning and executing those activities impacts on any time I have available to focus on new ‘stuff’.

The obvious response will be that I should stop doing them and focus on my own objectives, but that is too easy an answer. The reason for my ‘future failure’ is plain, though: Those commitments represent my success with earlier goals and compliance with my values/unifying principles. In other words, my inability to be goals-focused now is a direct result of my success in the past. It’s my own damn fault!

How annoying is that?

But another thing about setting 1-year (etc.) goals is the fact that goal achievement is a rolling programme, not something ‘done’ by year end while no new goals are set, no new roles and responsibilities are discovered, and nothing happens to stop you.

Life gets in the way, and a completed goal almost automatically results in the creation of a new one that crosses that ‘1-year’ deadline date, which in turn establishes a new start-date for that goal while the others still rely on their own start-date. We don’t goal-achieve Jan 1st to Dec 31st and then start again. School years, the financial year, the Resolutions year, our new job, sports and social seasons – they start their ‘year’ all over the place, so the rationale for specific goals set in the currency of ‘years’ is flawed.

To paraphrase Orwell : Deadline dates Good – units of time Bad.

The answer? I suppose it is to stop thinking in terms of the year as a unit of time within which to achieve things. If we consider Parkinson’s Law (which states “Work expands to fit the time available for its completion”), then it is self-defeating to spend a year doing something which could be done in 4 months if we just worked better.

Abandon ‘year-long goal setting’ and  work more effectively. But be aware that in accordance with the philosophy in my book The Three Resolutions , any completed goal – particularly a professional goal – will result in new, welcome and occasionally unwelcome impositions on your time.

How do you set YOUR Goals?

05 Wednesday Nov 2014

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In First Things First Stephen Covey advocated the Context Goal, where each of your goals is planned in the context of your various roles and your personal values. The specific drafting of goals, he suggested, should be done using the What, Why and How ‘method’.

To illustrate how to set goals using the Covey method, let me take you through a process.

You have a general idea about where you intend to go, but no sense of the detail. This is the secret of effective goal setting – not the simple identification of the goal, but four other factors of EXTREME importance!

The factors are:

  • Specificity – What
  • Motivation – Why
  • Method – How
  • Action! – Now

Specificity – how specific is your goal? Is it ‘lose weight’ or ‘by the 31st of December 2010 I will weigh 13st 7lbs’? Is it, ‘own a sports car’ or is it ‘By my 40th birthday I will own a black Reliant Scimitar S5a with beige leather trim’?

Do you see the difference? Which is likely to focus your attention the most – a generality or a specific, timed and even visible objective? That’s the first secret – being as specific as possible.

The human mind has a faculty called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This system alerts the unconscious mind to things that are important. As cavemen it would shout ‘TEETH’ when something crept up behind us. Now, it identifies things of importance in less direct ways. For example, ever bought a new car and then noticed how many other people had the same model? I know that since my wife and daughter both bought Citroen Xsara Picassos there are MILLIONS of them on the roads and I keep waving to complete strangers.

The purpose of specificity is to make the image of the goals’ attainment so important to your subconscious that it spots the opportunities to make progress towards your goal for you, rather than wait for you to see them consciously. Be specific where you can, and be as specific as you can. (BTW, that is the core rationale behind Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret. That’ll be £10 again, please.)

Motivation – why do you want to achieve this goal? What about it keeps you interested? What will it mean to you as you work towards it and when you achieve it? How will you feel? How will life be? What values will be met? Is it part of your ultimate vision?

Silly questions? I think not. Goals that get carried through are goals with meaning. It’s the goals that fail that are a reflection, I would argue, of the fact that you never really wanted to achieve them in the first place.

For example: how do you feel about goals that are set for you? I suspect they get a grudging ‘I will do enough to be seen to be doing enough’ response.

Why? Because someone set them for you, that’s why. You have no investment in getting the objectives met. You don’t see the benefit, to you, of doing the work that someone else feels is important. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just natural. When you were in school some subjects grabbed you and some did not. As you developed your interests and hobbies, you became passionate about some things and were disinterested in others.

So when setting your goals, decide why it is you want to achieve them. Create a passionate desire to get what you want by imagining what it will be like when you have it.

Method – having decided what you passionately want, in specific detail, the next phase is planning HOW you are going to get it. There are a number of ways to do this, as we will discuss later.

Action – get off your backside and MAKE THINGS HAPPEN. Don’t expect things to fall into your lap. They might if you wait long enough, but time is wasted in the wait. Don’t spend all your time ‘getting ready’. Having made a list of things to do in the Method (how to) stage, the idea is to DO those things. I know I have fallen victim of ‘perpetual planning’ in the past, making long lists of things to do and then procrastinating like heck until, finally, they get done. And then I regret the missed opportunities that resulted from my not being ready because of that waiting. Do It Now! Whenever possible.

Re-examine your goals and run them through this process.

Goal Setting

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

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I was re-reading First Things First by Stephen Covey last night, and spotting new insights as I did so. To paraphrase my newer understanding about goals, and why we do or not achieve what we set out to do, the four questions we need to ask about a goal we are about to set are:

  1. What is the truth, now? (What is my reality, and how might it affect the commitment I am about to make?)
  2. What is possible? (Am I setting an easy goal, and if so, how could I make it better and achieve a greater result?)
  3. How can I do that?
  4. Am I willing to do that?

Only when you’ve answered all four questions should you set a challenging goal. And only if the answer to the last question is an ethically charged ‘YES!’