A riff on Goals

People, in general, are good goal setters. We even devote part of a National Holiday to the setting of goals. New Year’s Resolutions.

A good part of the population takes the time to set goals and then proclaims them.

Several days later, a good part of the population ceases to participate in those goals.

This is the way the story plays out each year.

Then there are other people, those who set goals and pursue them.

We saw many of them in the Olympics; it is tempting to look at them and say, that is not me.

Resist that temptation. It can be you. I am not saying that you can win a gold medal.

You can be a person who sets a goal, develops a daily process to work towards that goal, and can see positive benefits from the goal you set.

Yes, you can do that.

You can set a goal on Jan 1, and you can still be working on it in March, June, September, December, and all the months in between.

One key is knowing when to be rigid and when to be flexible.

First, don’t be rigid around your plans, your technique, or your process.

I believe this is why people quit most of the goals they set. This is because they spend too much time thinking about the perfect process.

For example - Writing. People use Scrivener, use word, google docs, typewriters, notebooks; they all work at getting words on the page.

The same is for a blog; it isn’t worth arguing about what blogging platform to use, pick one and use it.

It is like buying a car; the freeways are full of cars, the cars serve one purpose. To get you where you want to go each day.

Be flexible in your process or your plans because life is going to change them.

Take any action movie that you watch. Does the mission get accomplished perfectly according to plan?

In Star Wars, did they plan for Obi-Wan to die? In Empire, was Luke’s arm getting cut off by Vadar or Han getting captured by Boba Fett part of the plan? Nope, it wasn’t.

So when your plan is disrupted by life events, circumstances, or situations, you have this choice. You adjust and make a new plan.

The process or the plan is not the goal. Instead, the process and the plan support your goals.

I set several creative goals this year. The first was to practice my saxophone 100 days in a row. I accomplished it by establishing a time to practice each day; at first, I would practice at lunchtime, but this was when I was working from home when I had to go back to in-person work, I didn’t stop because I didn’t have the same time to practice each day, I changed the time I practiced to when I arrived home from work each day, usually close to five pm.

Goal accomplishment is about moving forward, each day, one step at a time. If you are a goal setter and find yourself stopping, just start again. Starting again is easy. If you did it one day and then quit. Well, then you successfully started, so just do what you did before and do it each day.