2010: Goals, and how to reach them

So here we are, 2010 has come. I wish every one of you a very happy new year, by the way. Hope you had an awesome party. =)

A new set of 365 days (ok, 364) is now ahead of us, waiting to be used however we want them to. You might plan to spend these working at some same-old, average-paying, unfulfilling day job, then get home every evening and crash on the couch. With a crappy frozen Michelina’s dinner-ish stuff. Watching your usual TV programs.

But then, you’ll probably find the entirety of this post pretty boring. Or too hard. Or both.

You see, I’ve come pretty addicted to the “constant progress”, “getting the most out of life” kinda gig. Given that, I tend to take note of and apply as many tips and tricks and other helpful stuff as possible, in order to nurture my addiction and get my fix.

Before 2009 I really wasn’t much into all that “new year’s resolution” stuff. Actually I still am not. Resolutions are always the same old “stop smoking”, “lose weight”, “spend more time with my family” formulations.

Plainly, it sucks.

First off, ever heard of a new year’s resolution that wasn’t one of these three? When it’s something else, it’s usually more of a philosophical thought or some well-being clever quote, than any form of actual goal.

I think the general idea isn’t bad in itself, and it’s completely honorable to wish any good-natured resolution to come true for oneself. I mean, it’s better than nothing at all.

What I think smells bullocks is the nonexistent accountability, coupled with that it’s as measurable as a dieting atom.

That’s why I became genuinely interested when I heard the idea of  yearly goals. Written goals. Ideally in the form of a checklist.

After all, why limit yourself to only ONE thing? You’ve got the whole friggin’ year!

So for 2009 I decided to give it a try. What did I have to lose anyway? I wrote down a couple of goals I had for myself. Stuff I would like to accomplish, progress into, or habits to establish or ban. Many of them were fitness goals too.

First thing about writing them down is you can SEE them, right away, at any time. You don’t have to re-think about them, they’re here.

“OK Mat, that’s all very cool, but what is so different from resolutions, except that you write them down and have many instead of one?”.

HA! I’m glad you asked (you did, didn’t you?).

Goals have to be clear, attainable and measurable (don’t forget that you do have to reach it within 12 months). Instead of “Lose weight” or “Get in shape”, write something like “Lose 50 lbs of fat”, or “Do 50+ max push-ups to chest”, “Do 6 pull-ups”.

This way, you can easily say if you succeeded or not. Have you lost 50 pounds of fat? It’s a yes or no question, and there’s no way around it.

The last 2 goals I mentioned were part of my list, and I’m proud to say I’ve reached the latter. I still have a couple of push-ups to go for the other one, and my pitiful excuse is that I also gained some mass over the last months which makes them much harder to do. Lame, I know.

One poor formulation I made was to “Reduce appearance of arrogance”. At the time I had been stunned by some comments here and there about how I looked arrogant saying one thing or another. Since this is definitely not how I want people to look at me, I was determined to change that.

It’s hard, however, to formulate such a goal better, because you can’t measure it in the first place. One way around is to add another line stating how you will consider this goal successful. For instance, “hear no more comments about my being arrogant for the entire year, even when I try and ask people about it”. I am proud to say I have also made this goal a success.

I mean look at me. I have white, well-aligned teeth and I’m so badass I don’t even need sunglasses.

*Cough* hum… This brings me to the review part. At the end of the year, it’s judgement time. Look at your goals, see what you reached and what you haven’t. Take time to congratulate yourself for the good shots (I mean look at m… OK shut up Mat).

Then, put together what you failed to reach. Ask yourself why you haven’t (now’s the time to bring out all the lame excuses, such as the very unfortunate mass gaining keeping you from doing those push-ups).

More importantly, see what you can do to make it successful next time. What is it that didn’t work? How can you fix that? Many of my 2009 goals were not reached, but I’m pretty close. This is kind of frustrating.

My kung-fu instructor reminded us about one important tip that is very helpful for reaching our goals: Read your list of goals every morning when you wake up and every evening before bed. It’s simple and looks silly. But after even a few days without reading them, they easily become a blur in your mind, replaced by all the petty things happening in the everyday life. It’s exactly what happened to me, even though I was very serious about reaching them (and still am).

On the other hand, when you read your goals every morning, they follow your every thought and action throughout the day. Everything you do will be influenced by the goals you’ve set for yourself. Same goes for the night. It’s no big secret that what we dream at night can be influenced, and those dreams can influence what you’ll do the next day OR give you that big genius idea you’d been looking for.

One more quick tip about goal writing: If you have one big main goal, try to break it down as much as possible. It can be many different things that are necessary to reach the bigger goal.

For example, “Write a successful book on subject X” could be broken down with “Build a knowledge base on subject X with at least 50 articles”, “Travel to Y where I can find X”, “Attend 2 seminars about successful writing”, “Write a draft of 600 pages”.

You can also break down big numbers into smaller ones. For “Lose 50 lbs of fat”, you could say “Drop 1st 10 lbs by february”, then “Have 25 lbs lost by May”, and so on until you get to 50 (quick tip: The last 5-10 are always the hardest to lose).

This way you can check on them more frequently and you have a smaller, more attainable goal to focus on. And you can check those smaller goals as you reach them, instead of going a big step forward but still can’t touch your list yet.

Another thing I realized I failed at was planning (again!). How are you going to make your successful book happen if you just write when you feel like it?

I already manage a calendar, but I also made a separate quick list of weekdays

(Monday through Sunday), specific to my yearly goals, with what I’m going to do with each. For example, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are assigned at going to the gym and learning mandarin. Writing is scheduled on Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. And so on.

I can’t really say it’s a summary, but it does sum up the many little things I did and thought about on my yearly goal review, earlier this week. I’m fired up and ready to go!

What about you? Do you set anything for yourself every new year, what is your strategy? Are you thinking to start out? It’s far from too late, we’re still early in the year =)

PS: Juggling is doing good. I have to admit I slacked a bit during the holidays though, but I still progressed to 20 throws! No boundary was set for that challenge, so here I’ll set it right now: When I reach 30 seconds of nonstop juggling, I will consider this challenge DONE. Oh, I have also progressed on finger whistling, but not quite there yet.

No video this time, as I have yet to find a suitable replacement to my badly-working iMovie.

Stay tuned!