“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
–Peter Drucker
Goals
Goals are desired results that you commit to achieving. These can be personal, family, career, organizational, or a combination. Goal setting involves establishing specific objectives along with completion times. You can have both short and long term goals, sub goals, and milestones. There is an entire field devoted to goal setting for personal and business growth – one of the best works on setting business objectives is Built to Last by Collins, I high recommend this book. I would like to speak towards SMART goals.
The SMART criteria are commonly attributed to Peter Drucker’s management by objectives concept. SMART is a mnemonic device for a useful goals setting methodology. The letters S and M mean specific and measurable. For example a goal of “improve my health” is difficult to define and measure. This method would recommend that I set my goal to lower my weight to X pounds and lower my blood pressure to 130/80. The second version is better because I can directly measure and define the desired end state. The A stands for achievable, perhaps I could set my weight target at my ideal weight, so says my doctor, at 165 pounds, but it might not ever be achievable for me to hit this target – why set a goal I can never reach. I would rather set a goal I can actually meet that is a balance between challenge, risk, and the probability of success. The R is for relevant – if the goal doesn’t matter why is it a goal, why am I motivated to go after this? If my blood pressure and weight are good why focus on these? Lastly, the T is for time bound – your goal should have a specific time frame and target. Sometimes we have multiple goals and milestones that lead up to a bigger goal, but they all have a timeframe for completion. The main advantage of SMART objectives is that they are easier to understand, to track, and see when they are completed.
“Of course motivation is not permanent. But then, neither is bathing; but it is something you should do on a regular basis.”
–Zig Ziglar
Motivation
Motivation: the desire or willingness to do something, drive, ambition, the desire to do things. It’s the driving force at work behind setting and attaining goals. Motivation is the emergent energy that pushes you towards a goal. Motivation is not an innate trait like height – it is a learned skill. Just like there is a method, techniques, and training that can make you a better golfer there are practices, exercises, and behaviors that can boost your personal motivation. Maybe it’s a catch 22? You have to “want to do it.”
Ask yourself one question- why? Is my motivation because I have to; do I need to pay my rent, put my child through college, or be a provider? These all fall under “because I have to”. Another answer might be to do something for personal satisfaction, interest, fun, or challenge. Maybe climbing a mountain, writing a book, or becoming a volunteer for an organization – these reasons would fall into the because “I want to.” Lastly, you may be driven to certain tasks because you are obligated to do so. Examples might be supporting a family member who is needs a helping hand, supporting a charity, or some civic obligation. There is clearly a field of motivating factors; want to, have to, obligate to, and understanding where you stand can improve your chances of achieving satisfaction. We all do better work in the endeavors which we love.
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I absolutely agree with the extraordinary analysis proposed. I would just like to make two considerations.
There is no doubt that to effectively manage their own lives, it is necessary to fix SMART objectives, set priorities balanced and impose the discipline needed to run them. It is not easy, and also in many organizations there is the inability to set priorities and lack of self-discipline necessary to stick to those priorities. But what will our lives depends directly on the decisions we make. The important thing is to make a decision and act, pointing out that the future is in our hands. The choice is ours.
The goals, if they are blindly pursued in spite of everything, can become highly destructive. The point is that one can not set a goal and pursue it by ignoring the context and the consequences of what we do. Trying to reach at any cost the goal we set ourselves is not always a good idea. We must always have the ability to analyze the context in which we are moving. We must always Work out the signals coming from the environment around us and know how to adapt our strategies to what’s going on. And understand when it’s time to go back, give up when necessary.