Goals

• Goals
  • Describe goals
  • Create awesome goals and attain them.

Goal (What)

A goal is a desired future condition or conditions that an individual or group intends to achieve or is actively working toward through purposeful actions.

Analysis, Extensions, and Relationships

Analysis: Here is a breakdown of the main ideas

• Desired future: Goals are about what you want to achieve in the future, not about your current state.

• Conditions: A condition is something that is observable and measurable. It is concrete, not vague. Goals are about going after something that is specific.

• Intentionality: Goals require a conscious decision to pursue something.

• Purposeful actions: Achieving a goal requires planning actions and then taking these actions (efforts).

Extensions: Here are some other ways to think about goals:

• Goals can be big or small: They can range from something like “become CEO of my company” to “read one book a month.”

• Goals can be short-term or long-term: You might have a goal to finish a project this week or to retire early in 20 years.

• Goals can be personal or professional: They can relate to your career, relationships, health, or any other area of your life.

Relationships: Here are some of the key concepts related to goals.

Present state

Conditions as they exist in the present.

Goal state

Best conditions that an actor can attain in the future given their context.

Context

Surrounding circumstances. For goals this might involve available time, financial resources, skill sets, physical resources, and so on.

Action

Doing something or planning to do something that moves one closer to attaining a goal; a step.

Examples of Goals

1. Lose weight.
   1. Present state: overweight
   2. Goal state: healthy weight
   3. Planned actions: Exercise. Changed eating habits. Healthier diet. Less alcohol.
2. Camper Van Modification
   1. Present state: cooking food with a propane stove.
   2. Goal state: cooking food with an induction stove + extra battery capacity.
   3. Planned actions: Learning about batteries, purchasing hardware, design, van modifications, building new battery cables, wirings, buying cookware that is induction stove compatible.
3. Increase Sales (Business)
   1. Present state: low levels of sales
   2. Goal state: sales increased by 4x
   3. Actions: Improve the products. Do many customer interviews. Improve the website. Improve the marketing.

Rationale for Goal Setting

Here are some reasons why becoming skilled in goal setting and attaining is worthwhile.

1. Make your dreams come true. Continually create a better future.

2. Live life to the fullest.

3. Have focus.

4. Do what is most important.

5. Feel a sense of purpose.

6. Feel powerful, like you are a sorcerer who can conjure up magic.

7. Feel motivated; get up in the morning and be excited to get going. Feel alive.

8. Get groups working together and passionate; esprit de corps.

Concerns:

1. Too much goal drive can cause stress, frustration, feeling overwhelmed, and so on.

2. Pursuing goals leads to high amounts of failure. Grit (resilience + passion) is critical.

Goal Setting (How To)

Principles

1. Goals reflect what an actor (person or group) most wants if they can attain anything possible for their context (surrounding circumstances).

2. Not goal setting. It’s goal setting and attaining. Focus on reaching goals by taking actions.

3. Payoffs. Ensure that your rewards greatly exceed your drawbacks on a holistic and ongoing basis.

4. Best: Describe the best conditions that are possible in the future given your context. Best means the most rewards and the fewest drawbacks in a holistic sense.

5. Roles: Set goals for each role you have. A role is an area of concern or responsibility for an actor (person or group).

6. Focus: Only set a few goals that reflect what you most want. You can achieve just about any goal, but you cannot achieve very many of them.

7. Journey: Ensure that the journey (process of goal attainment) is the best it can be. Minimize drawbacks: cost, time, effort, conflicts, stress, hassles, and so on. Maximize

8. Analysis: Break big goals into subgoals.

Framework

Repetitions: For each role, repeat the following design-action-improvement loop until you have reached your current goal.

1. Design. Figure out what you most want, the most important thing. Write this down as a set of conditions that will exist in the future. Figure out how you are going to make these. As appropriate, break down your big goal into right size subgoals.

2. Action. Figure out the best actions to take today and perhaps this week. Take these actions.

3. Reflective Thinking. Think back on your recent experiences and figure out useful things such as next steps, actions that are useful, how to lessen or extinguish concerns (improvements), useful information, …

Tips

1. The best goal setting approach is John Doerr’s OKR Goal Setting Method.