Today as tip #6 of the 31 day series 101 Goal Setting Breakthroughs: A 31 Day Blog Series That Will Make 2008 Your Best Year Ever! I’ll go into the critical mistake of having a “divided mind” when going after what you want. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to my free RSS feed to get the rest of the series.
If there is one thing we can all agree on, you have to have a target in order to reach your destination.
Targets are tangible end points. Like the game of Sorry, we strive to get our pieces from point A to point B before either
1. A competitor gets all their pieces to their point B.
2. Your jerky little brother kicks over the board.
But picture having 10 games of Sorry going on concurrently. It’s you versus 30 other people. The game easily becomes exhausting as you quickly juggle the games. You start to sacrifice your game playing ability on game number 7 while trying to maintain the other boards. Then you find you can’t keep up with any of them very well. And you hope your little brother comes running in to kick over the boards.
Effective Sorry requires playing only one game at a time – maybe two if you are talented.
The same can be said for goal management. You will succeed time and time again if you choose one top goal and make it the main focus of your actions. The other goals have to play second fiddle to this one target.
But how do you decide?
Since you have so many goals now, and have gone through finding the power pullers versus the ones that may not be all they’re cracked up to be, it’s now time to zero in.
Start by picking 2-3 goals in each of your categories. These should be the goals that excite you the most. They will be the ones you can see yourself completing. These few goals will also be the ones from your list you feel like you’ll enjoy working on.
Some may be big, others may be small. It’s ok to have small goals on your list!
But what is the most important goal to have on your list is an A #1 big daddy goal. This is the goal that comes before all others. It is your heart’s desire and should be a smack your head obvious goal for you to choose.
But if it’s not, here are 5 ways to make sure the goal you choose as your main goal is the right one:
1. It’s measurable – By measurable, you want to know where you are now vs. where you’ll be when you accomplish it.
2. You are excited by the idea – Choosing a #1 goal should feel similar to how a Priest receives a calling to be a Priest. It should just feel right. You would look forward to the future and everything this goal will bring.
3. You don’t feel guilty or sad – Remember in the last post I talked about your head and heart not being in agreement? It’s ok for your #20 goal to be out of alignment, but not your #1 goal. So if you are hesitant for whatever reason. Pick again. Pick something you like and will have fun doing.
4. You can see yourself completing it – If you are brand new to goal setting, pick something you think you can do in a year or less. Don’t go for something 10 years out. With goal setting, success builds more success. You want to get some early achievements rolling. That way, your confidence will build and you’ll tackle the next goal with more gusto.
5. Achieving this goal will help you achieve one or more of your other goals – I like to choose a goal that will help knock out another goal or two.
An example would be someone who wants:
- More energy
- Better fitting clothes
- To look attractive
- To sleep better
- To improve self-confidence
- To exercise for 1 hour per day.
If you look down this list (yes it might be obvious to some) the goal of exercise for 1 hour per day will knock out all the others in this category.
Incidentally, this is what we call smart goal setting.
So pick the goal that will be your #1. Remember, by picking it, you are not saying you won’t accomplish the others. Not at all. You can do the others too, but you’ll be putting in more time on your number one goal.
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My main goal and new years resolution this year is to run 2008km in 2008. Last year it was “to get in better shape”, but this year I picked a much more specific and measurable goal. I can tell at any point whether I’m on track or falling behind. I’m tracking it with Nike+ and Runner+, which lets me stay on top of my goals, and acts as a motivator through the support community and running friends.
For the rest of my goals, I have put all the daily actions I need to do into Joe’s Goals, and I created a Timemap (from lifehacker) so that I allot sufficient time to complete each action.
Hi Geoff,
Yes, 2008km is indeed measurable. I can see that would be far more effective than “get in better shape.”
How many km can you run in a day now?
Have you charted out a weekly KM plan you’ll need to reach in order to make it all the way to 2008km?
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