The Funny Thing About Goals

October 20, 2009 · 4 comments

Football Road
Image by atomicShed via Flickr

Getting back to my roots as a project manager, I remembered the funny thing about having goals yesterday during some discussions around the public beta launch of myTPSreport.com. They just seem to make everything easier.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

The Power of Goals

I look at goals as being synonymous to things that I either want to attain or things that I want to have happen. Once I am able to understand what it is that I want, figuring out what it is that I need to do to get what I want is a lot easier. You absolutely have to know what you want, or you’ll always end up spinning your wheels.

I’m convinced of it.

In the case of myTPSreport.com, we just want people to use it and let us know what they think. That should be easy enough, right? The tool is free, and it adds value to our operations, which leads us to believe that it may also be valuable to the general public.

Once we understood what it is that we wanted: people to use and talk about the tool; our conversation around how we should promote the tool became a lot clearer. This isn’t a high pressure sale and we’re not making money off usage, so the messaging is come check it out and let us know what you think…

Easy enough, right? Well it wasn’t until we understood our goal.

What Do You Think?

Do you have goals? Are things magically easier when you lay out your goals? What goals have you achieved so far this year? What goals do you have left to achieve before 2010? Let me know in the comments below.

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  • http://justinkownacki.blogspot.com Justin Kownacki

    I think two reasons people are opposed to goals are:

    1. Setting a goal means you're working instead of playing / experimenting / exploring, and that change in mindset can rob a person of the joy s/he previously derived from the experience.

    2. Once you define success, by default, you've also defined failure. And failure is something no one flirts with willingly.

    I think goals are incredibly important for improving yourself, your craft or your standing in life, but there's also a time and a method for setting goals that won't work against you. Too little risk and you'll never grow, but too great a challenge and you'll never surmount it.

    Who knew personal growth required an understanding of your own capabilities?

  • http://www.hallicious.com Hallicious

    I agree with your points, Justin. However, I would argue that general goals can help clarify direction when an individual or group of individuals is playing / experimenting / exploring.

    Big picture goals don't necessarily have to define failure by default, either, when expectations are low… I think it all depends on the goal setter's mindset from the start

    I have noticed that people really get hung up on goals with dates attached to them, i.e. I need this done by next Tuesday… That is not a level of specificity that I mean when I say general goals above. :)

  • http://www.hallicious.com Hallicious

    I agree with your points, Justin. However, I would argue that general goals can help clarify direction when an individual or group of individuals is playing / experimenting / exploring.

    Big picture goals don't necessarily have to define failure by default, either, when expectations are low… I think it all depends on the goal setter's mindset from the start

    I have noticed that people really get hung up on goals with dates attached to them, i.e. I need this done by next Tuesday… That is not a level of specificity that I mean when I say general goals above. :)

  • http://www.hallicious.com/2009/10/what-makes-you-successful/ What Makes You Successful? — hallicious

    [...] I remember the lesson like it was yesterday. We covered the topic of success in Management 301 my junior year at the Zoo and the answer really resonated with me. What I found out was that success starts and ends with me. I can’t define your success and you can’t define mine. We can only define success for ourselves, and to me that’s another funny thing about goals. [...]

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