Day #8 - Analyzing Goals

Before I begin to describe how to manage the process of reaching goals, I want us to review what we have done and to spend some time analyzing the results.

I have stated that we are much more successful when we have written goals. I have also stated that our written goals should be divided into five categories in order to have a snapshot for complete life. Those five categories are: Personal, Intellectual, Vocational, Financial and Spiritual. I have spent the last few entries offering brief descriptions and examples for each of these categories. The objective is to write down two or three specific items under each category in order to flesh out the outline of our goals.

This strategy assumes that we can fit all of this information on one side of one sheet of letter size paper. Whether we are planning for three weeks, three months or three years, there is value in being able to see our entire lives on one side of one sheet of paper. When we do that, we are able to see our goals in proximity to each other and analyze their potential impact on each other. This is vitally important!

It is critical to remember that great goals can conflict with each other if we are not careful to consider the goals as a whole. A friend of mine once shared with me that she had the goals of paying off all debt, going back to college and quitting her job in order to have time for school. These were all great goals but it was not feasible that she would be able to quit her job and pay all of her bills also. But she had never considered the natural conflict between those two goals. She had actually created a plan for failure.

And this happens much more than we might imagine. Good people with meaningful goals fail to consider them as a whole and end up accomplishing very little without ever realizing why it happens.

So lets write down our goals. If you have never done this before, I suggest that you start by focusing on a few weeks or months. After you analyze the goals you have written, you may discover a need to modify a particular goal because of its impact on another goal. Then you will be ready to develop a strategy for accomplishing your goals.

Tomorrow – Using Time Strategically