Setting goals for 2021 – A brief guide about personal goal setting

There's nothing wrong with setting goals. But you usually have to create a system to go along with the goals in order to achieve them. Having goals, though, can direct the systems you want to create for yourself.

Goals (for me) over the past few years:

1. Be able to play 140 minutes of soccer in one go without wanting to die (or feeling like I would).

2. Be able to stop taking a statin.

3. Get my blood pressure down from 130 over 90 to a healthy level (not critically high, but worrisome high)

4. Become a better GM for my bi-weekly RPG games

5. Become a better whole-system software developer/designer

Those are all goals I achieved, but in order to achieve them I established systems that enabled them. 1, 2, and 3 were created by a focus on always exercising MTWR, occasionally F (but that was left open for social events) and of specifically going to the grocery and shopping in specific sections (stay on the perimeter, ignore most aisles) and cooking at home. 4 was achieved by creating a habit of increasing fiction/RPG book reading and setting aside time to draw up/write down material for sessions so it was less improvised, but the fiction reading also gave inspiration for better improvisation. I also explicitly asked for feedback about sessions rather than letting players stew and be pissed at me because I made something too hard or seemed to be targeting a specific player. 5 was achieved by a similar approach, though around creating personal projects and reading technical content and carving out the time to do it. Creating various short term objectives (like being back in school) that would exercise specific areas I felt I was weak in, along with soliciting feedback from others (peers and managers).

Process beats goals.

Don't set a goal of running a marathon or losing x pounds/Kgs but rather run every day x distance and eat / don't eat every day x healthy food / y unhealthy food.

Once a process or habit is in place, you can look at goals and more ambitious processes. Small goals are good to start with and having huge life goals is fine (having a "purpose").

> I don't think that's the intend

Indeed, it is a possible unintended consequence if you're not reasonably aware of that risk.

Note that a person who is likely to feel that way is also likely to be less well-equipped to predict your specific preferences for how to express that.

There was a discussion here on HN perhaps 8 or 10 years ago that led me to realize I was doing essentially that. I talked about getting in shape and other goals, and got an emotional high (of a sort) from the response I got and from thinking about what I would do to get in shape and be able to do once I was in shape. But I never followed through.

Then I shut up about it, and actually got in shape. And when I ran into some people who I rarely saw, and they were shocked by my 40+ lb weight loss and how good I looked, I got that same emotional reward but also the actual reward of being in shape and being able to do the things I'd only imagined being able to do.

Now I discuss what I'm doing with some like minded friends and we keep each other accountable (Hey, how's the running going? Made it a full 10k yet?). But I don't discuss it with other people in general unless it's brought up by them. A kind of happy-medium between the talk-too-much and just-shut-up-and-work modes of operation.