I’ve been spending a bunch of time over the past few days setting some new goals.
I tend to do things like this twice a year–in January when everyone does New Year’s Resolutions and sometime during September when I get a quick lull in my speaking schedule.
I’ve got the standard physical/fitness/weight loss goals.
I’ve got a few writing goals in there (one of the reasons blogs are back up in better frequency).
I’ve got some business benchmark goals.
I’ve got some relationship goals.
But the biggest difference for me from some past years of goal setting, is that I’m spending more time figuring out how to make my goals quantitative. Yes, there are definitely some that are qualitative, but I’ve spent a bit too much time in that area where sometimes it can be easier to justify substandard results.
It had me thinking back about 9 years ago when my old house was being built in Phoenix. I had the chance to visit it while it was still being framed. All the workers on site had hard hats and measuring tape. If a wall or door was even an inch off, it would have made a world of difference in the structural stability of my house. It would have been dangerous.
But we give up a lot of inches…
…or we sometimes don’t even decide what the structure should look like.
I’m fine if we change paint colors and if one day we add an addition to the structure of our goals.
But far too often, we just say “build a house.” “Just get a bit better.”
Big time results require us to set some quantifiable goals and then to take some measurements of our progress. We won’t always be happy with our progress, but that just shows us what else we need to get busy doing.
