Setting Goals – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Setting Goals – The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
So I decided that it was time to review my strategy and I have not been hitting the targets that I was hoping I would. It is time to have a look at how I am setting my own goals and how I am going to be reaching them.
Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Will I catch up? How long will it take to catch up?
All of these things would be interesting things for us to see after all. So let's see where this all began.
So you have a Goal
Great. You are starting a new project. You found the motivation not to spend your time just sitting on the couch watching Netflix or playing another mission or quest on a game. You have been thinking and/or talking about doing this for a long time now, or maybe you just decided last night that you cannot sit around anymore.
It is time for action.
As with every project that you take on, whether or not you thought about it, there is an end result that needs to be acquired or reached. You might think that you can be productive without a goal, but give it time. Either you will have one in your head in a general sense or you will probably abandon your “productive” little project.
If you have a Project you will have a Goal and if you have a Goal then you should be writing it down!
Writing your goals down makes them tangible, tactile and real. You can evaluate your progress and achievements by comparing what is real to what is written down as your goal!
Building blocks of setting a Goal
A Goal might seem like a one-line statement at the bottom or top of a manifest of a project, but it is actually a value that is supported and maintained by a collection of items within your project.
Here are the following considerations:
Do you have a project plan?
Is your Goal finite or comparable?
Are there levels of progress pertaining to the result of your goal?
If there is only one end result to your project, is there a side project that will prove your progress in achieving your goal?
Is your Goal the final step in the project plan?
Most of these items revolve around having some sort of plan for your project. If your project has no plan at all then the likelihood that your project has no goal at all is much higher.
If you have a plan of action then you have a list of steps that you need to take, you have a collection of required items that you want to collect in order to complete the project and achieve your Goal.
The Good
A Good Goal and Project has balance.
You have done your research, you have collected everything that you need in order to complete your goal. You have the time available to actually do what you need to do. Lastly, you actually do it. You follow your plan and you modify what you need to in order to keep it relevant.
You will achieve your goals!
The Bad
A Bad Goal would be something that is actually negative to you. Usually this starts with a Project or desire that was not positive from the start. When you look at a project, you need to consider carefully whether or not you will benefit from it truly.
Another example of a Bad Goal is one where the project plan will lead to into contact with negative or dangerous situations or when you need to go into unmanaged debt.
These Goals usually destroy themselves. Often a person embarks on a self-destructive journey and they do not usually last in that frame of mind forever, so they soon change their mind and the Bad Goal self-destructs.
The Ugly
The Ugly Goal is the worst type of goal to have. This is the type of goal that hurts us, usually for the long run. No goal, even when it is poorly thought out, is an Ugly Goal to start. If it was just badly allocated and we were willing to let it go, then it would have become a Bad Goal and it would have self-destructed.
After this, we would have made the decision to alter our goals, modify our expectations and get on with our lives.
The Ugly Goal is the goal that we are unable to let go of, the one that undermines our internal track record and disturbs the peace. Part and parcel of building self-esteem and maintaining motivation is the idea that success breeds success. Your habit gets interrupted when we have a goal that we do not reach sits with us and becomes a precedent to the internal thought that we are unable to do this task. We are unable to reach this goal. Then we start making a habit of it.
What is the solution to the Ugly Goal?
Let go of it if you have one. If you are making a new goal, keep it in your head that the goal may have to change. You are still in the process of establishing your parameters. You need to break down and reconstruct and evaluate that the steps that you have taken to get to this point is part of your progress and likely, they were part of your Project Plan from the beginning.
Conclusion
To top this all off I have to use myself as an example.
It was my intention to do a new article, every single day, for 60 days consecutively. I did not quite think it through to the fact that NaNoWriMo was starting (I am currently 5000+ words into that one for 2018) and I am also doing both my NQF3 Mechanical Refrigeration as well as doing night school for Grade 12.
I missed an post, then another one. I could have given up and despaired but instead, I have only changed my parameters. Life happens. My Project will go on. My 60 articles that I planned will still be published and I will still do them daily.
I am in the process of analysing if it is possible for me to catch up. If I can, then I will try create a inventory (posts ready in the positive) instead of having a backlog in the negative of posts waiting to be published.
I know that I can do so because I am able to write 3000 to 10,000 words in a single day. If I get the opportunity then I will definitely catch up.
What I should have done, was to have written 5 articles in advance and have them ready for publishing before I posted my first post. That would have given me a little leeway.
And so we learn!
All Image credits to pexels.com