We are currently one week into 2018. This is the time of year where running shoe, gym memberships and yoga mat sales soar. Deals are made with the self and with others..some reasonable, others less so. This is the time of the resolution. I am not sure about you, but periodic consideration of goals is helpful but doubly so when it’s more a glance than a stare. I would challenge you that the new year may not be the best time to set a goal, and perhaps goals can hinder as much as help. I’m not promoting an aimless approach. Anyone who knows me will know that I am outcome orientated, what I will say that if you are dead set on a New Years goal, I would challenge you to rethink how you get there.
I don’t know if Ian Ferguson and Paul MacDonald made the goal to win gold in the K2-500 at the 1984 Olympics on or around New Years Eve. They may have done, but they probably didn’t. It was more like, April 3rd, 1979 at 8:37 in the morning, AND if they did make that specific goal at that time (Which I’m sure they didn’t) then I’ll wager it was more amorphous than specific. Once that meta goal had been established then it was a case of a systematic steps to achieve this meta goal, the nature of which would have changed over time.
It’s cliche but the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, Or maybe it doesn’t even have to be a step, it could be a thought, or an intention, or strategy, which will contribute towards a gradual positive change.
Thinking more about this as I type I don’t even know if goals are a thing anymore, Are they? As Amanda Ruggeri discussed in her article on ditching goals that although goals can be useful and performance enhancing, they can also lead to ennui, distress, a self perception of underachievement and an increased likelihood of bailing early on said goals.
I’ve moved from having goals as the endpoint of my existence rather as a strategy to achieve overarching themes of my life, that is, how do I want to roll out at the end of the day. Broadly speaking, it’s healthy (in the meta sense) with all the positives for me that it entails (calmer, nicer to be around, less anxious ). How do I fulfil my life’s theme of being healthy? Why I glance at steps to fulfil that theme, which for me involves...you guessed it, goal setting. Wait? What? I know, it seems counterintuitive considering I’ve spent the last 400 words banging on about the death of goals. But, if you consider your goal as a compass bearing, not a GPS coordinate, or a smaller component to realise a broader theme in your life I would suggest that you may see more progress than blind pursuit of a single outcome.
It’s cliche but the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step, Or maybe it doesn’t even have to be a step, it could be a thought, or an intention, or strategy, which will contribute towards a gradual positive change.
Thinking more about this as I type I don’t even know if goals are a thing anymore, Are they? As Amanda Ruggeri discussed in her article on ditching goals that although goals can be useful and performance enhancing, they can also lead to ennui, distress, a self perception of underachievement and an increased likelihood of bailing early on said goals.
I’ve moved from having goals as the endpoint of my existence rather as a strategy to achieve overarching themes of my life, that is, how do I want to roll out at the end of the day. Broadly speaking, it’s healthy (in the meta sense) with all the positives for me that it entails (calmer, nicer to be around, less anxious ). How do I fulfil my life’s theme of being healthy? Why I glance at steps to fulfil that theme, which for me involves...you guessed it, goal setting. Wait? What? I know, it seems counterintuitive considering I’ve spent the last 400 words banging on about the death of goals. But, if you consider your goal as a compass bearing, not a GPS coordinate, or a smaller component to realise a broader theme in your life I would suggest that you may see more progress than blind pursuit of a single outcome.
