A CONFESSION- “My Goals Suck”
I confess, until recently my goals sucked. Sure at first glance they looked, felt, and even smelled like the real thing. It wasn’t until I actually decided to focus on goal setting itself that I realized just how far off the mark I had been. I’ll explain.
Last week I set a goal. The goal being to dig deeper into what it takes to think and perform like a champion – what winners do and how they think. You know, the things you and I do, right? Hold it. Group-confession time… what we sometimes do. Anyway, I vowed to do this by taking a single trait of champions and devoting an entire month of study, action, and reflection towards learning and doing all I could to improve it within myself. Then I’d share my discoveries each week in a series of articles. So it only seemed logical to start with goal setting since I had just set a goal.
Champions have it down and everywhere we go we hear over and over again the virtues of goal-setting, writing them down, breaking them into actionable chunks, and then knocking down the targets to those goals. Simple stuff. Or so it seems. Why then do we still fail to achieve many of our dreams? If you’re anything like me, there’s room for improvement. Here’s what I’m discovering about goal setting and achievement:
FUZZY, UNSHAVEN GOALS NEED A RAZOR
I’ve noticed a tendency to have vague, fuzzy goals. The kind that look like they just woke up and haven’t shaved in weeks.
Goals need hard, clean lines to them. Otherwise they’re as functional as an unemployed guy holding out for a management job for 10 years. They just don’t work!
They need to be recognizable not hidden behind the stubble of vagueness. If a goal can be misinterpreted, it’s a sure sign it’s too vague. So shave that fuzzy goal. Redefine it for clarity and to ensure it can be measured.
Repeat after me, “FUZZY GOALS Suck.”
Keep rewriting and adjusting them until there can be no chance of misinterpretation. Leave no wiggle room for compromise. By the way, whatever happened to Hai Karate aftershave?
Ah, but I digress. Let’s get back on track by restating what should now be obvious:
FUZZY GOALS Suck. I’ve said it before.
SHAVED GOALS kick butt like Chuck Norris clean shaven and wearing Hai Karate!
I’ve listed a couple of goals that I had as of last week that sucked and the new and improved version for each.
| FUZZY GOALS (before) |
SHAVED GOALS (after) |
| Write 45 minutes each day | Write 45 minutes on current topic (“goal setting”) this is free-flow writing and editing, not researching, reading, or copy/paste |
| Workout 4 days per week | Workout 4 days per week (60 minutes each day consisting of 15 minutes cardio / 45 minutes of intense progressive weight training, recording the workout in a logbook) |
Know somebody that needs to trim their goals? Pass this along to them.
Have some great stubble removing goal setting tips? Put them in the comment box below.
More Goal Setting Articles:
Goal Setting part 2: Rock n Roll Goal Setting Lessons
Goal Setting part 3: Got Tools For Your Goals?
Goal Setting part 4: Zig Ziglar Goal Setting Formula
