This past week, as my work year is supposed to be winding down, I took a look at the goals that I established for my self at about this time last year. After reading through my list and trying to see it with an unbiased perspective, I realized that I did not achieve a single goal that I established for myself.
The framework that I used for the goals is not anything that I came up with on my own. There are those who say that there are no new ideas. Looking at the movies that have been made of the past few years would seem to prove that statement. I got this framework from a guy on the radio named Dave Ramsey who, got it from some other sources. I tried to find a link on his website that showed this framework so that others could use it if they are interested. Since I didn't find one, I will write it out long form.
My list of goals consists of one goal in each of six different areas. The areas are....
Financial: This isn't about how much money a person has, but more about how secure people feel as a function of how much money they have. A financial goal is more about what the money is doing than how much there is in the account.
Spiritual: While I am a Christian, this is not a think that is only for people who believe in God. Everyone believes in something.
Physical: This could be a matter of weight loss, or physical endurance. Could also be how much sleep a person gets or what they choose to eat or do.
Intellectual: For a person who has a PhD, or didn't graduate from High School, what a person learns, by whatever means, is a component of what kind of person they are.
Career: Who do you want to be when you grow up. Same question if you are 6 or 60.
Family: Since people are relational beings, how you interact with the family has just as much of an impact on you as it does on them.
I did find a link from Dave Ramsey's website about how to set goals. It is below
http://www.daveramsey.com/article/setting-goals-that-work/lifeandmoney_goalsetting/
Now that I have talked about what kinds of goals I came up with and where the framework came from, here is the big news. I did not achieve a single one. My goals were specific, measurable, documented and were time related. With the end of 2010 just a week away, I did not accomplish a single goal.
Before I just change the year at the top of the goal list, I thought it would be a good idea to try to figure out why I didn't achieve any of my goals. After reviewing the things I tried to do to achieve my goals, I came up with a short list of failure modes.
1) I think I came down to a lack of focused intensity on my part. To paraphrase Covey, I didn't begin with the goal, or goals, in mind.
2) I did not review my goal list during the course of the year to see if I was hitting my goals. Had I done that more diligently, I may have course corrected my mistakes sooner.
3) I did not have anyone holding me accountable to the goals. My wife saw the list and commented to me about it once, but, outside of that I had no outside input on where I was with my goals. Sharing them with someone before I even started would also have been a good way to find out if my goals are even realistic to begin with.
I intentionally didn't publish my goal list for a couple of reasons. The goals that I have are personal and I try not to put my whole life online. The other reason is that if I have motivated anyone to set their own goals, I didn't want to influence what those goals will be.
