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

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

#51

Post by jolmg »

afarrell wrote: post #17

All of these present problems in different contexts Specific: This assumes that the picture you currently have of what you want is the thing you actually want. Do you want faster horse, a Model T, or swift reliable transportation of a form you've not yet imagined. Measurable: If you only value that which has a number, you'll lose sight of what truly matters in life because of the Streetlight Effect[1]. Consider the r…

> There is a limit to the degree to which you can "be sure" of anything, especially without 2020 vision.

Ha! Is that an intended reference to the year 2020? That's a great double entendre.

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

#52

Post by TeMPOraL »

jolmg wrote: post #51
afarrell wrote: post #17

All of these present problems in different contexts Specific: This assumes that the picture you currently have of what you want is the thing you actually want. Do you want faster horse, a Model T, or swift reliable transportation of a form you've not yet imagined. Measurable: If you only value that which has a number, you'll lose sight of what truly matters in life because of the Streetlight Effect[1]. Consider the r…

> There is a limit to the degree to which you can "be sure" of anything, especially without 2020 vision. Ha! Is that an intended reference to the year 2020? That's a great double entendre.

It's a reference to how Americans rate vision; 20/20 is considered normal, good visual acuity.

But I guess it works if read as a year too.

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

#53

Post by jolmg »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #52
jolmg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a limit to the degree to which you can "be sure" of anything, especially without 2020 vision. Ha! Is that an intended reference to the year 2020? That's a great double entendre.

It's a reference to how Americans rate vision; 20/20 is considered normal, good visual acuity. But I guess it works if read as a year too.

Yeah, normally I see it written as 20-20 or 20/20, never 2020. That's why I thought it was meant to be read both ways. Pretty good, I think.

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

#54

Post by cuddlybacon »

munificent wrote: post #34
afarrell wrote: post #17

All of these present problems in different contexts Specific: This assumes that the picture you currently have of what you want is the thing you actually want. Do you want faster horse, a Model T, or swift reliable transportation of a form you've not yet imagined. Measurable: If you only value that which has a number, you'll lose sight of what truly matters in life because of the Streetlight Effect[1]. Consider the r…

I think you're assuming that long-term goals can't change. Just because I have a goal to do X in ten years, that doesn't mean I am forcibly committed to reaching X even if I no longer want to. Let's say I have a vague dream of becoming a sailor. Consider these four scenarios: - Scenario A: I make it an explicit goal. In year 1, I read some books, take a sailing class, and forgo some luxuries to start saving up for a…

I think the problem with long term goals is not that your preferences may change but you don't update your goals. I think the problem is procrastination.

Consider this variation of your Scenario A: You make explicit goals to read 3 relevant books, take a sailing class, and save $10,000 for a boat. You find yourself in mid October having only read 1 book and saved up $2000. You end up not sailing until year 4 even though year 2 was certainly achievable.

A better variation of Scenario A: Breaking the big goal into smaller ones can prevent this type of procrastination. Instead of save $10000 by end of year, make 26 goals to save $385 every payday. Then make a goal to sign up for the sailing classes by June. Then based on that June date, decide to read book 1 by Feb 28, book two by April 30, and book 3 by June 30.

In the second variation, I assert you'd be much less likely to procrastinate to the point that your year end goal becomes unachievable.

Perhaps you assumed in Scenarios A and C would do that. Your post would make more sense that way. But I find most people do not do any breakdown. They'd just set the end of year results as the goal the reach a point where they realize it is impossible to achieve any of it.

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

#55

Post by cuddlybacon »

serverholic wrote: post #26
mr-wendel wrote: post #23

My contrarian take: 1) Write out your goals in the form of a personal letter to yourself. Focus on the things you think are making you unhappy, not what you think will make you happy. Read it out loud in private. After that, hide it away for a while where only you will find it. 2) Keep your goals private. Especially keep progress private. Trying to stop smoking/drinking? Folks will notice, but politely decline to ans…

Definitely agree with #2, especially with big goals (or what they call BHAG in the article). Seriously, go around and tell people that you want to write a new york times best seller and see what kind of reactions you get lol. Talk about destroying your motivation quickly.

Another problem is subjecting your goals to backseat driving. I think this is most commonly seen with weightloss goals.

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

#56

Post by hawktheslayer »

slsii wrote: post #12
hawktheslayer wrote: post #5

I attended training at my work where they changed M to Motivating, and I use that with all of my employees' objectives. One might say that if it's Relevant then it should be motivating, but when I ask them if it's motivating I often get an honest no. I find if the person doesn't like the goal despite it being SMART, then they tend to avoid it. The other question I learned to ask for Attainable is "do you think there…

That’s a great suggestion. Thanks for sharing. Did you encounter problems with removing M for Measurable in that case?

I just rolled the metrics into Specific and it seems to work

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

#57

Post by nullsense »

jolmg wrote: post #51
afarrell wrote: post #17

All of these present problems in different contexts Specific: This assumes that the picture you currently have of what you want is the thing you actually want. Do you want faster horse, a Model T, or swift reliable transportation of a form you've not yet imagined. Measurable: If you only value that which has a number, you'll lose sight of what truly matters in life because of the Streetlight Effect[1]. Consider the r…

> There is a limit to the degree to which you can "be sure" of anything, especially without 2020 vision. Ha! Is that an intended reference to the year 2020? That's a great double entendre.

As a side note I think that expression will need to come with a trigger warning in future.

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

#59

Post by metalrain »

mr-wendel wrote: post #23

My contrarian take: 1) Write out your goals in the form of a personal letter to yourself. Focus on the things you think are making you unhappy, not what you think will make you happy. Read it out loud in private. After that, hide it away for a while where only you will find it. 2) Keep your goals private. Especially keep progress private. Trying to stop smoking/drinking? Folks will notice, but politely decline to ans…

I also find that setting goals from ground up works better for me.

I find it very hard to believe in audatious goals so that makes them really unmotivating. But there are many directions where you can achieve small victories.

I think happiness comes from contentment more than achieving goals.

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

#60

Post by jorams »

helmholtz wrote: post #11

Christ I hate the word 'overwhelm'. It's SO jarring. It's like when people say "I'm feeling melancholy". NO! You're feeling melanchol ic ! You did something "on purpose" and not "purposely"! And the world is not full of overwhelm. It's full of emotional overload[1] perhaps. [1] https://www.dailywritingtips.com/overwhelm-is-a-verb-isnt-it... ).

> It's like when people say "I'm feeling melancholy". NO! You're feeling melancholic!

While I fully agree with you and it sounds incredibly weird, dictionaries don't agree with you on this one. They consider "melancholy" a synonym of "melancholic".

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