Goal

[clevermanka]

I feel like I don't have goals. Because when I want to do something, I just go do it. I don't classify it or think of it as A Goal. I just start doing whatever it is.

Learn a new art technique. Check.

Take another dance class. Check.

Grow out my hair. Check.

Are these goals? They don't feel like goals. I just decide "Hey I should do this" and then I do it. There's not much planning involved. I've always thought of goals as larger things. Write a novel. Publish a novel. Be successfully self-employed. Go to graduate school. Raise children. Be famous. None of which I have ever wanted to do, by the way. I just want to be free to be happy and content with my life. Which, left to my own devices, I'm pretty good at doing.

Is it a goal if I'm already doing it?

I feel like I don't have Life Goals. I'm usually okay with that. Except at the workshop this weekend it was a huge obstacle, and very frustrating. A major part of several journal entries was to focus on goals. And...um, Drinking More and Wearing More Jewelry didn't really fit the point of the exercises.

mckitterick tells me that I have goals, but when I look at his goals (having a positive effect on humanity, creating something that will change the way people think, saving the world, etc. etc. etc.) anything I actually feel like doing...well, it doesn't really fit under the same umbrella, you know?

I don't need to compare myself to other people to define myself, and I certainly don't set my standards or sense of self by other people's definitions, and obviously my goals are not going to be everybody else's goals, but I'm coming to the realization that I don't even understand the idea of goals. Here's what should be a really simple word/concept and I haven't the foggiest how to deal with it.

So, I guess Goal #1: Figure out what is a goal?

Comments

[ms-danson.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you have projects rather than goals.
---
Thinking a bit more: A goal (to me) is more ends focused. A goal is completed, it reaches its end at a set place. It doesn't necessarily focus on the 'how' so much as the end or end reward.

A project is something you do, and is more 'how' focused than 'end' focused. The end may fluctuate more.

A goal may have multiple projects. A project may have multiple goals.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you have projects rather than goals.

Yes! Yes yes yes exactly. That is how I think of them, too. I don't have goals, I have projects.

[radcliffe.livejournal.com]

Well, it most certainly sounds like you and he have very different ideas of what goals are!

There are giant overarching life goals, and then there are living every day to the fullest goals. One type is not better than the other, in my opinion.

I break my own goals up into living goals and legacy goals. I will leave behind me gowns that I have sewn that have traveled all over the world = legacy goals. I also want to add more style to my life daily = living goals.

Your goals are living goals, maybe you are feeling a need for legacy goals? I think the beauty you have brought in art/dance/creativity/costuming is definitely a legacy!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

maybe you are feeling a need for legacy goals?

I don't at all, though. I don't need to change the world or influence people or do anything other than make my own little corner of it a pleasant space.

I like the idea of adding more style to life. Thank you!

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

maybe a different way to look at it - in David Allen getting things done type of speek

runway - current actions - tasks to do
10,000 feet - current projects - short term outcomes, multiple steps
(IE, take another dance class - need to register, attend, practice)
you usually have 30-100 of these
20,000 feet are your areas of responsibility -
key areas you want to achieve results in
health, family, finances, home, spiritual, recreation
you often have 10-15 of these,
another way to classify is your rolls: dancer, whore, girlfriend,
employee, friend,
30,000 feet one - two year goals
direction you want to be heading. Things that might be in limbo right now that you want to stabalize. maybe wear more handmade items then storebought. Resolve bloating health issue

40,000 feet three to five year vision
bigger categories, longer term goals. family, career, financial

50,000 feet - life goals - big picture.



another rewording of the same...
http://www.goal-settings-turn-true.com/goal-setting-activities.html
http://www.goalsguy.com/home.html

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

But see, here's the thing. There is nothing, and I mean nothing that I care to plan more than a year out. Except, you know, planning for being alive. I have zero interest in the question "What do you want to be doing five years from now?" Categorizing the different types of goals doesn't really help me define the term "goal" in a way that I can apply it to my life.

I do like the phrase "key areas you want to achieve results in," though. That makes sense to my brain. Thank you!

[nottygypsy.livejournal.com]

As I understand it a "goal" is when the silly men get the ball into the net or though the posts.

Please file this comment away in your lovely memory and hit me at your next earliest opportunity.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I love you so much. And I completely agree with you.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

I believe that is a "gooooooooooooooooooooal", not a "goal".
I blame futbol.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

I am someone who lives my live in an attempt to have what I personally consider a "meaningful life" (I've posted about that previously; however, I am not someone who sets overarching personal "goals" of the sort you are discussing. That is, I think, because I am rather like you, in that if there's something that crosses my mind that I want to do, I simply haul off and do it...whatever it might be (although my freaking chiropractor gave me a damn exercise where I have to write down a bunch of things I want to do before I die...I don't think she realizes if I do that list, I'll set about doing them and then probably have them completed within a year or two).

I think that you do have goals, and they are things like "living frugally", "enjoying each experience fully", etc. rather than experiential milestones to reach for. Many people need to set that sort of thing up for themselves, because they have no other means of simply turning their will to the "task at hand" to complete something they set out for themselves.

I am not someone, though, who is interested in a number of the goals others would want to reach in a lifetime. For me, if anything, it's things like...deciding I really do need to "aim for a pain free existence"...once I made the choice, I immediately set about doing what's necessary to get there (to the best of my ability).

How much, if any, of a goal-driven social structure is in place to keep people driven toward "doing something" to validate themselves rather than actually taking in and enjoying their existence? Is this social mechanism something that actually benefits people?


D.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Is this social mechanism something that actually benefits people?

I think yes, it's very beneficial. Otherwise I wouldn't be wasting my time trying to hash out a definition that makes sense to me. Without some sort of internal motivation, why do anything other than sit on the ground under the bridge next to the river and let yourself die?

I'm not saying I need goals. I just want to understand the concept and maybe attempt to apply it to my own life. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But it seems to be a very common thing, many of my friends appear to have goals that they value, and it would be nice if I understood the concept better.

[tessagratton.livejournal.com]

Since you used some of my goals as examples, I figure I can explain how I think of them, and why I think of them as goals.

"Write a novel." I don't think that's a good goal. It's too amorphous, and amorphous goals rarely are met, in my experience. That kind of goal is very distant and sort of like "I'd like to jump out of an airplane before I die." You don't have any reason to write right now instead of tomorrow or next week if your goal is Write A Novel.

But if your goal is "write a novel by March 1st," you can use the goal to motivate yourself - to think, "well, in order to do that I need to write at least 800 words a day, so I better not watch TV, I better open my freaking laptop." This is also different from some things like "take another dance class" because that one can be completed immediately. No matter how hard I try I can never write a novel in a day. "Learn a new art technique" could be one of those amorphous goals that never works for some people, or it could be made more specific, or it could be something instant depending on your definition of "learn."

Here's the real crux:

Goals should be motivation tools. So if you don't need motivation, why make a goal?

And I think a lot of people use them as proof of progress, but then never make progress. A goal to me needs to be something that I can do, but not in a day or a week - it's long term, something I need to work at a little bit every day. So something like "live frugally" would count for me, though I'd be sure I understood the details of what that meant to me (like, how many times a week I could eat out, what my budget is, etc) so I couldn't fudge around with it too easily.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Thank you for understanding the way I think.

Goals should be motivation tools. So if you don't need motivation, why make a goal?

This is an interesting point. Gods know I'm plenty motivated when I want to be.

No matter how hard I try I can never write a novel in a day.

Slacker.

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

hmmm, Maybe some of my goals are more like a style guide. I'm motivated as hell, but in what manner would I like to make it happen?

you've given me something to think over... thank you.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

One of the important tools for people who need to do yearly evaluations is what are called "SMART goals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_(project_management))." SMART is an acronym for how to write workplace goals: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant/realistic/reach-oriented, and time-bound. That is, if I have a goal of "Write a novel," the SMART version would be something like this:

Write a young-adult SF novel per my outline (specifing the general plot and characters and idea and so forth, approximate length, and so forth) by November 2009, revise it by February 2010, and sumbit it to my agent/editor by March 2010.

If I were to set this goal without deadlines or an outline, it's no longer a SMART goal. Similarly, if I were to set this goal for three months from now, it would indeed be a reach but wouldn't be realistic or attainable.

Lydia, if you make short-term, limited goals that fit these SMART measures, they're still useful as goals!

PS for Lydia: Look at you having an existential crisis!

Freewheeling Zen, FTW!

[adammaker.livejournal.com]

I think you are on a Path of Happiness,
and that utterly fails to suck as a way to go.
-
I'd like to think I'm on a similar path,
we just plan stops along the path differently.
-
I'm happy now.
I'll be a different flavor of happy working on my PhD.
-
One of my biggest challenges in the last decade was to just go ahead and be happy no matter if today is rainbows or shitstorms. (whatta forecast.)
I'd like to think that I am there.
-----------
Perhaps you have already met your long term goal, and now you are free to do whatever strikes your fancy... what a sweet place to be!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you have already met your long term goal

It's because I am a perfect and enlightened being. Don'tcha know.

I like the idea of Freewheeling Zen. Instead of Chop Wood, Carry Water, it's Build a Bonfire, Have A Water Balloon Fight.

[nataliesee.livejournal.com]

I think goals can be conceptualized specifically and amorphously. You can have a sort of amorphous goal of gaining a post-graduate degree, but if you don't have an immanent time line, then the specifics of that goal will form later. I find that in my life, long and short term goals really go hand-in-hand.

I think of goals as needing to be contextual (maybe allowing for flexibility), attainable, and inspiring or as Tess said, motivational. And I think that you do have them. I've heard you express goals relating to fitness, specifically. But I do also see you as someone who takes pleasure in Things Done Well and so maybe that satisfaction in many cases supercedes your need for many goals.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I've heard you express goals relating to fitness, specifically.

That's true. And things like "doing one unassisted chin-up" are things that could be considered a goal or a project (as ms_danson points out above).

But The Big Things, you know? I'm just...at a loss.

Yes yes yes in regards to Things Done Well. I even have "doing a good job (http://www.livejournal.com/directory.bml?int_like=doing+a+good+job&opt_pagesize=100&start_search=1)" as an LJ interest!

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

How about
"Be able to do the splits/grande layback/awesome barrel turn"?
It takes work, and has an end result.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Well, but I'm not asking for goals, themselves. I'm looking for a definition of goals. What the idea of "goal" means to others.

[stuology.livejournal.com]

You do have goals. Yours are all mostly short-term. You find some instant problem you want to relieve or instant desire you want to fulfill, and you do the small number of tasks you need to accomplish the goal. You do have have some lifetime goals. You want to be happy and content with your life. Some of your short term, instant goals are done to fulfill that lifetime one. You also do not want to suffer the health problems that extra weight brings. Your shorter term goals of getting flow fit mastered is part of that lifetime one of controlling the part of your health that you can control.

You may not like the word "goal," but you have them.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I don't dislike the world "goal." I just don't think I understand it. This is helping to clarify. Thanks!

[acommonreader.livejournal.com]

I seems that your sense of a problem here may stem from what most people actual strive for, which is a high level cognizance of and ability to articulate what you want. You know what you want - whether it be to do, to try, to have - and ensure its realization rather quickly because of the aforementioned high level of awareness, I think. There may be much less bantering and struggling-to-determine-and-make-precise than there is for other people, those around you setting large and slightly abstract goals...?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

ability to articulate what you want

This is big. This is yes.

It's only been in the past five years or so that I've learned to put into words my feelings and thoughts. The ability to articulate what I want. No wonder I've been having such a hard time with the concept of Goal. Because I do want things and want to do things, but putting the ideas into words does not come naturally or easily to me. Here is the heart of my problem, I think.

Thank you.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

I dig goals, but I'm better at the short term ones. For example, I operate on a daily index card of my to-do list. I figure if I get at least half of whatever I've written down done, I'm feeling pretty happy with myself.

I can always tell when I don't want to do something because that task carries over from index card to index card for over a week.

My long-term goals are fairly simple creatures that keep each other company in the lobby of my subconscious. There are lots of things I'd like to learn and do better, and they will come with practice, research and discipline, three things that I would love to have more of.

So many long terms goals seem to require a better understanding of what my finances are going to be in a year or two from now (like say, going to Japan or something). I'd love to travel, and I'm sure if it was really important to me that I did it soon, I could sock away the money for that, but with the way the economy is right now, my goal is to just pay off debts, get better at the stuff I already have, and entertain myself along the way.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I operate on a daily index card of my to-do list.

Dude. You're more organized than I am. I didn't think that was possible.

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

(I never notice what gets friend-locked, so this if any of it is inappropriate. Or terribly worded. I blame sleep deprivation.)

I'm a little confused.

What about your weight-loss stuff? Or your diet stuff? Or your figuring-things-out-so-that-you-can-be-happy-stuff-that-you-skirt-around-but-never-spell-out-so-I-don't-exactly-know-what-it-is stuff?

Do they count? If not, why not?

I see some of your point about "goal" being ill-defined. Getting a Ph.D. was never a goal for me. It's just what I did in the natural course of things (heck, I could make a strong case that staying away from academia was really a goal for me, but I guess that's a failed goal).

Maybe "goal" is like "project" but you're afraid it won't happen if you don't set it on a pedestal?

Maybe you do have "goals" (by whatever definition you use) but they're so internalized that you don't usually feel compelled to spell them out?

I know some people use goals in small ways, like there's too much **** to do, but if they write down some goals, they can cross something off the list and let their mind rest a bit because they've accomplished something.

I know other people use them so they can look back at the end of the year and say that they've accomplished (some of) their goals. This, in particular, I think doesn't apply to you, because a lot of those people are doing it because they're (not so) secretly insecure about such things. If you're prone to such motivational techniques, you keep the need for it bottled up farther than I've ever seen :).

For me, I do have "goals", and they're things that I feel like I have to actively work on, because my natural inclination is to let them slide, but the thinking-back/thinking-ahead me says I should do them. And then I tick them off because I wanted to tick them off. And much later, I'm glad for doing the thing, not just ticking it off.

These goals can be small, medium, or large.

I suppose that leads to a punchline of something like "if all of my needs, wants, and actions were fully unified, I wouldn't have 'goals'" .. but that's not worded quite right.

As a side note, I think things like team sports are different. When I play competitively, we absolutely do set goals, like winning some tournament or going to Nationals or whatever. That gives us a collective, shared, explicit focus and motivation as a team that makes us practice and play better as a group and individually. I could go on, but I have this nagging feeling that it's probably not relevant here :).

Anyway, enough sleep-deprived rambling.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Maybe you do have "goals" (by whatever definition you use) but they're so internalized that you don't usually feel compelled to spell them out?

I think this is a huge part of my difficulty with the term, yes. See my comment (http://chernobylred.livejournal.com/516997.html?thread=4921221#t4921221) to acommonreader, above. She pretty much pinpoints my issue. For most of my life I've been fine with vague, internal motivations and I haven't felt the need to assign them definitions or visible/audible shape. I don't really feel a need to change that since the system has worked fine for me so far.

But I do feel the need to at least understand how this process works (positively) for other people. There's no harm in trying something new, and if it works better than the old system--hey! Bonus!

For sleep-deprived rambling, you come off very well. I suppose that can be expected of genius.

[red-tess.livejournal.com]

I sort of skimmed comments (I'm catching up to days of LJ), so if this has been mentioned, ooops. :)

I think that, semantically, what you're looking for is the distinction between Vision and Mission. As part of our magickal training, we had to do a session on goal-making. I developed what I called the "chart of 6" that incorporated planning with articulation as a way of distinguishing between BE-ing and DO-ing.

Most folks associated "goals" to Mission (what will you DO). You don't necessarily need to define (m)/(M)ission - sometimes, it happens on it's own (kind of your own internal "to do" list, or written). Here are some excerpts:

Mission - The specific, action-oriented steps you'll take to fulfill the vision. Describes what you might do on a daily basis. Articulates the commitments you've made and translates them into reality. Helps to describe the next step you'll take - what you'll do to get where you want to go. If the vision is the journey, the mission is the path. Usually written as an infinitive ("to create," "to write," "to network," etc etc).

Vision - the far reaching, awe-inspiring, takes-your-breath-away ultimate goal for the project. Almost scares you to voice it aloud. Your dream goal for the outcome of what you're doing. The articulation of your destiny. Should describe the end of the path, not the view along the way. May be indeterminate. 1 statement that describes where you're going.

Personally, I think you're looking for your Vision.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

This is very interesting, and I would enjoy speaking with you about this sort of thing in person. I'm very practical, and I don't, in general, have Big Dreams. I'm not saying I want to have Big Dreams, but it's interesting to speak with people who do!

I think you're looking for your Vision

I think I'm trying to come to grips with the fact that I don't have, or want, A Vision. Does that make me lazy? Less interesting a person? I don't like to think so, and there's really not much I can do about it anyway, so should I just stop worrying about it? =D