Too many goals?

Life is hectic these days.  We’re all trying to juggle ten million different things, preferably all at once, and to expert level.  It’s not easy.

At the start of the New Year, many of the forums I like to read were full of entries about New Year Resolutions and goals.  That was the case, I should say, but not any more. When goals or resolutions are mentioned now, tThe common thread seems to be something along the lines of “Argh, how on earth can I possibly achieve all 672 and a 1/2 things I’ve got on my list to do this year!?”  It seems like even the most persistent attempts to fulfil resolutions have disappeared from the wayside.  I’m not sure if it’s just me, but goal lists seem to have grown way beyond a single annual objective, past the one-a-month number of 12, and are rapidly approaching the one-a-day (overwhelm) level of 365.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Simplicity and Zen

The more I try to work on it, the more I realise that achieving simplicity seems to be one of the hardest (and least mastered) skills around today!  With the help of a book on annual goal-setting, (“Your Best Year Yet!“) I’ve managed to cull my list to a top 10.  Steve Pavlina and his wife Erin talk about having one personal and one professional goal for the year – but that just seems beyond me.  Mark Joyner has reached the pinnacle and his free Simpleology system is designed around having one long term goal, divided up into short and medium term milestones.  I’m nowhere near that yet, but having experienced for myself this year the power of having that short list of ten, and focusing on only one at a time to completion, I can’t imagine how immense the force you could generate with that approach!

The Power of Focus

I love the way Mark Joyner explains it best, so I’m going to paraphrase (but I wholeheartedly recommend you go and check out his simpleology course, while he’s still nuts enough to offer it for free).  Think of a hammer and a knife.  You have a cardboard box you want to open.  First, you take the hammer to it.  Whatever is inside might take a beating, but the sides of the box don’t give.  Then you take the knife.  Different story, right?  The reason why it’s so different is that using the hammer, your energy is diffused over the whole area you’ve hit, but using the knife lets you focus your energy into the small, sharp area of the blade – and makes it easy to pierce the cardboard.

Imagine that same small, laser sharp focus applied to your goals.

What most of us do is to diffuse all our energy into so many different things that progress is slow, and impossible to see.  There goes the motivation, right?  To go back to the hammer idea, you have 50 nails you want to drive in.  Which is going to get you there fastest – tap a little on nail 1, then move and tap a little on nail 2, then 3, etc etc down the line, and part way there you look back and they’re all still looking as though you’ve done nothing at all?  Or whack that first nail with everything you’ve got until it’s in, finished, and you can move on to number 2.  Which approach will keep your spirits and energy level going?

The Secret of Goal Setting

You’ve probably all heard of the Harvard study that showed the graduates with written goals out-earning the ones without, so I won’t repeat the wisdom of writing your goals down here.  Instead, here’s my theory on WHY writing those goals down made a difference.

The successful graduates in this study had their written goals in their wallets, carried them around and looked at them a few times a day until they were achieved.  How many goals do you think you can fit onto a piece of paper that you can slot into your wallet?  The goals they were focused on were narrowed down to only a few key ones, which they focused on.  All that energy was laser targeted onto probably no more than 5 things at once, but more likely only 1-3.  I haven’t read the study, but I do know how much you can fit on that carry-around piece of paper, because I’ve tried it.  Have you?

So, if you had to pick the top 3 goals you’d carry around in your wallet or handbag with you, to look at 3 times a day, what would they be?

PS It appears that the Harvard/Yale study doesn’t appear to exist.  I’ve recently come across a post here that did quite a bit of research to find it, with no luck.  They did, however, find a recent study that supported the importance of written goals – and have provided a copy of the research findings on their site.  (Wonder if they’re going to ever run it now they’ve got all the publicity from it?)

Tagged as: clarity, Goal, Harvard study, overwhelm, power of focus, resolution, self help, simplicity, Yale study