In two short decades, we have morphed from a society that feared and resisted change to one that not only accepts change as inevitable, but also completely takes dramatic change for granted. From retail trends, to urban planning, to pop culture, to technology, to business, to medicine, we are now completely accustomed to seeing one way of doing things quickly washed away by the next. We expect change so much that we put off major purchases to get the next season's features. We routinely ask, "What will be the next big thing?"
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline tolet go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to losen two short decades, we have morphed from a society that feared and resisted change to one that not only accepts change as inevitable, but also completely takes dramatic change for granted. From retail trends, to urban planning, to pop culture, to technology, to business, to medicine, we are now completely accustomed to seeing one way of doing things quickly washed away by the next. We expect change so much that we put off major purchases to get the next season's features. We routinely ask, "What will be the next big thing?"
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline to let go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to lose. They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
n two short decades, we have morphed from a society that feared and resisted change to one that not only accepts change as inevitable, but also completely takes dramatic change for granted. From retail trends, to urban planning, to pop culture, to technology, to business, to medicine, we are now completely accustomed to seeing one way of doing things quickly washed away by the next. We expect change so much that we put off major purchases to get the next season's features. We routinely ask, "What will be the next big thing?"
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline to let go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to lose. They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer. . They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer.
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline tolet go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to losen two short decades, we have morphed from a society that feared and resisted change to one that not only accepts change as inevitable, but also completely takes dramatic change for granted. From retail trends, to urban planning, to pop culture, to technology, to business, to medicine, we are now completely accustomed to seeing one way of doing things quickly washed away by the next. We expect change so much that we put off major purchases to get the next season's features. We routinely ask, "What will be the next big thing?"
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline to let go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to lose. They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
n two short decades, we have morphed from a society that feared and resisted change to one that not only accepts change as inevitable, but also completely takes dramatic change for granted. From retail trends, to urban planning, to pop culture, to technology, to business, to medicine, we are now completely accustomed to seeing one way of doing things quickly washed away by the next. We expect change so much that we put off major purchases to get the next season's features. We routinely ask, "What will be the next big thing?"
Corporate America, in an admirably rigorous response to global competition, has been quickest to accept and embrace the new meta-paradigm, that the paradigms themselves are going to keep changing faster and faster. The same goes for all types of organizations that wish to continue existing, from school districts, to churches, to the IRS. Even the military—a stronghold of tradition if ever there were one—has been forced to utterly remake itself in response to the whole new ballgame of 21st-century geopolitics.
Strange then, that the self-improvement industry—which generally leads the vanguard of alternate points-of-view—has been slow to revise its concept of what makes a good goal. We've been told countless times that goals should be written down and Author Paul J. Meyers also provides the handy acronym, SMART, to remind us that goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Tangible. This is all good advice.
The "specific" and "measurable" requirements mean that a good goal will be quantifiable rather than vague, and pegged to a particular completion date. For instance, a goal "to be a better father" is poorly crafted; much better instead "to spend 10 hours with my kids every week this year." Again, these guidelines are generally good advice (though at myGoals.com, we've developed an innovative if heretical variant called "ongoing goals").
Unfortunately, when combined with the requirement that goals must be written, these rules-of-thumb imply that goals should not change once they are set. They suggest that anything but completion of the goal, on time, is failure. But in a world of constant change, nothing could be more wrong.
A better approach for today's always-changing world is to think of goals as a vector, not an endpoint. Pick a point on the horizon as your goal, and walk toward it. The success comes not all-at-once when you reach it, but rather, in tiny amounts with each step you take in that direction.
If you select a direction, continuously make forward progress, remain attuned to changes around you, and adjust your direction periodically, then you will tend to do just fine. Tom Peters makes the point well; during his "In Search of Excellence" days, he was all about goals as endpoints. Now, in explicit contrast, he tells people, "Keep your eyes open and do stuff."
You should expect that your direction will need to change slightly now and then. Occasionally, it will even change dramatically. Failure to make adjustments is to go the way of the buggy-whip manufacturers who failed to notice Henry Ford.
We plan as well as we can, but the simple truth is that we never know what tomorrow will hold. We must make decisions in the absence of perfect information. We must be willing to change our plans on a dime. As seasoned managers in the high-tech industry often say, "We pick a direction and go. If we have to change it later, we will. We can afford to make mistakes if we move quickly enough to fix our mistakes fast." This capacity for real-time response to new situations is the very definition of nimbleness and adaptability. Surviving requires constant adjustment. Occasionally, this even means total abandonment of plans that are no longer relevant.
Your life should be no different. The inability to be flexible can lead to two big problems. First, you might stray far from your endpoint (your goal) because you didn't adjust to something that affects the goal or your ability to work toward the goal, such as a change in your personal situation, or a need to change your priorities. Second, and possibly worse, you might actually accomplish the goal, only to find that you have been pursuing the wrong thing! Sad indeed is the graduating law student who discovers only now—three years later and $100,000 in debt—that she has no interest in the legal profession.
For many people, discipline is often required to stick to a goal. But the most hardcore individuals, those who require no such motivation, often have the opposite problem: they sometimes require discipline to let go of a goal. This is because winners generally hate to lose. They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer. . They don't know how to quit. They've lived a life of solving problems, never throwing in the towel, even when things get rough. As a result, they sometimes fail to abandon something even when it should be abandoned. Think of the U.S. government's unwillingness to "retreat" from Vietnam and you'll get the idea of how stubborn pride can interfere with reaching the best outcome.
In daily practice, this suggests some slight modifications to the traditional rules of goal-setting:
1. Set goals with the expectation that they will almost certainly change if they are longer than 6 months. The change may be big (such as changing the goal itself), or small (such as slightly modifying your plan).
2. Goal plans must therefore be "living documents." Ink is too permanent, which is one of the primary reasons we developed myGoals.com as a place to manage this inherently dynamic process.
3. Constantly re-evaluate. Once a month, ask yourself, "Am I still pursuing the right thing?" and "How can I improve my approach?"
4. Finally, don't allow your tolerance for change to allow you to give up on something prematurely. (Not that you ever would.) All that's required to know the difference between "giving up" and abandoning an obsolete plan is a bit of simple introspection and self-honesty. Ask yourself the straight question, "Do I still want this?" and you'll come up with the right answer.
