Developing the Goal-Setting Muscle

In a previous post, we looked at how leaders are those that make change happen.

Before you can make change happen, you have to define which change you would like to make.

Goals Define Which Change You Want to Make

For the last 3-5 years, I have tried many different methods of looking at goals.

I go from not having any…to setting way too many.

Or just resetting goals every month when I get bored or when they get hard.

Or making them grandiose or way too easy, both methods to try and play it safe.

My Love-Hate Relationship with Goals

Because we are in the goal setting season, thinking about resolutions and the new you for the New Year, I decided to do a little reflecting on why I am weird with goals. These are a few that I came up with:

1. I don’t really know what I really want
2. I would rather keep my options open and just, you know, let life surprise me when it comes along.
3. I want to avoid the pain and disappointment of not achieving the goal. For some reason, I think it would hurt more if you don’t achieve a goal if it is written down.
4. I avoid setting goals because if I miss the goal, I can just say, meh, it didn’t matter to me anyway.

Do you relate to any of these in any way?

Regardless of our relationship with a formal goal setting process, we all aspire to do things that matter.

We all need to get to the end of the day, week, month or year and see that we have accomplished something to feel good about ourselves.

The legendary Hunter S. Thompson, in only his 20’s, had something incredible to say about goals:

In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.

The full letter that this was quoted from is remarkable. You can find it here.

I love how Hunter states that the goal is secondary; it’s the functioning toward the goal that is important. I could take it a step further and say that the process of moving towards the goal is more important than whether we achieve or fail.

A Rigorous Goal-Setting Process Help Us Move Towards The Life We Want to Live.

Zig Ziglar outlines a very clear and effective way to define your goals. Watch him talk about his method here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-VJ_lauCw

Zig’s goal setting framework has seven steps:

1. Write the goal down
2. Put a date on it
3. List the obstacles to overcome
4. List the skills and knowledge required
5. Who will you work with?
6. What’s in it for me?
7. Develop a plan of action

This framework is laid out in a Google Doc you can use, click here. Make a copy of it and save it to your Google Drive, then you will be able to edit it and define a goal for yourself.

My Goal For 2019

This year I want to be more consistent with writing and publishing ideas. The goal I am setting is to post weekly here on this Blog. That is 52 posts for the year, starting with this one!

I have fleshed out this goal using Zig’s framework. Feel free to take a look at it here.

To achieve this goal I know I will need to ask for support from people in my life. I will also be important to review the goal daily and incorporate the tasks into my productivity system.

So how about you? Where are you at with incorporating the goal-setting mindset into your daily life? Is there something specific you aspire to achieve this year?