In order for something to get accomplished, you must know exactly what the goal is. Yes, if you don’t have specific goals, some things in life will happen on their own. However, setting concrete goals are important for two main reasons.
First of all, when you write down your goals and have them in viewing distance constantly, it is easier to remember on a daily basis to work on them. Put them on the bathroom mirror, on the fridge, on the steering wheel, set them as your desktop background, wherever you know you find yourself looking at often. They will be a constant reminder to go about your day with intention.
Secondly, having written down your goals for any amount of time allows you to go back later and see how you’ve been growing and accomplishing things. Once you see yourself making progress, accomplishing specific goals that you can check off or cross through, empowerment will seep into your body – you’ll be motivated to keep on, and to set even more goals for yourself, perhaps bigger ones you were scared to set before.
My challenge for you is to make a list of goals for the next fiscal year. …you know, the next 12 months. Don’t forget to avoid making ambiguous goals:
Ambiguous goal: learn blues guitar.
Concrete goal: learn 5 songs by Jimi Hendrix and 5 by John Lee Hooker on the electric guitar by January 1st.
If your goal is simply to learn blues guitar, you will waffle around for months, switching between messing around on your guitar and pacing your house wondering who in the world would ever want to teach an unmotivated person such as yourself blues guitar. Yes, often you do need to brainstorm a list of more ambiguous items before narrowing them down to a final, concrete list. So, the progression being, if you want to learn 10 blues guitar songs on the guitar by certain artists on a certain guitar by a certain time say, two months from today, then that allows you to set stepping stones along the way. Two months, that’s about 8 weeks. That means a little more than a song a week. How about a new song every five days?
My friends Blake and Matt have been making their own goals lists: Matt’s is for this next year, Blake’s is an ongoing life list. And now, here’s mine as of a couple of days ago – it still needs some narrowing down as far as concreteness goes, but it’s definitely workable from here:
Projects, General
– Work at least 20 hours a week on College Rebellion from now through July
– Dig 2-3 more terrace beds in the yard and ready for early spring planting
– Grow all vegetables needed with spring, summer, and fall plantings
Writing, General
– Write one letter a week
– Finish NaNoWriMo (write a 50,000+-word novel in 30 days) in November
– Write the second draft of my 2009 NaNoWriMo project
Reading
– Read 8-16 fiction books
– Read 3-10 nonfiction books
– Start a casual book-review blog in January
Academics, General
– Complete online college courses in: Animal Behavior, Kitchen Science, Neuro Science
– Re-work through All the Math You’ll Ever Need by the end of 2013
– Work through Maths from Scratch for Biologists by the end of April
– Apply to Mayland College / ace their entrance exams
– Begin pursuing the rest of my transfer diploma in science
Work and Money
– Continue to study and practice new ways of getting better at being a chef
– Continue picking up more supplementary house-sitting and gardening gigs
– Re-listen to the Dave Ramsey lectures on saving money
– Save every little extra bit of money a month and DON’T spend it all on books