Never Fear Failing To Meet Your Goals
photo credit: James Jordan You never need to fear missing your goals. You never need to be upset about failing to hit your target and here is why.
Failing to meet your goals is your viewpoint.
It is one way of looking at those goals. It is quite valid to choose a different viewpoint, there is no one right viewpoint.
Today I looked at the goals I set for the week, I failed to meet all 3 of them. They were challenging but I have met goals of that difficulty many times before.
So I did some retrospecting on why I failed to meet my goals and looking at my behavior this is what I discovered.
I deliberately choose not to meet those goals.
I have distinct memories of sitting in front of my computer and having a thought flash through my mind saying ‘you need to learn some kanji now in order to meet your goal’. Then I remember choosing to study some videos on life coaching instead.
Does this mean I failed to meet my goals? From a narrow and rigid viewpoint, yes it does.
But if I look deeper I have to ask, why did I choose to study life coaching instead?
The answer is in terms of my life right now, researching that area provides me much more value and happiness than learning japanese.
That is how my beliefs are currently set up.
Based on that I’m glad that I did not meet my goals, what a waste of time that would have been.
Now looking ahead to next week I have to carefully consider what goals I really want and which ones I want most.
Failing to meet your goals is never a bad thing, you are at least one step ahead as you actually set goals.
But if you learned something important about yourself then failing to meet your goals is a good thing!
Meeting goals is always secondary to learning about yourself and the nature of happiness.
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October 28th, 2009 at 12:56 am
You did not fail, you just changed your priorities “silently” without updating your weekly plan.
October 28th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@Martin: You are absolutely right
What is amazing is that we can choose any viewpoint we want to look at it and it totally changes the implications of how we see our behavior and how we shape any new behavior.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:11 am
Good reflection.
I’m a fan of agile goals and staying flexible. It really is about asking, “what’s the next best thing?” and “what do I want to accomplish?” If I’m prioritizing and changing goals based on outcomes, that’s one thing. Sometimes I find I need to shift from passion to self-discipline when the going gets tough. I learned long ago that sacrifice is the price of success and the key is internalizing the reward (such as a job well done.)
November 4th, 2009 at 3:27 am
Beautiful write up and timely.
I just started studying argumentation. I can quickly see how knowing how to evaluate the strength of an argument (claims, evidence, inferences, warrants) can really help you build a case.
What I especially like about argumentation is that it helps you improve your thinking. I also like the fact that it helps deal with all the areas that are not black and white. Facts you can simply look up. It’s when there’s an argument about “what to do” that the power of argumentation really shines.
On blogging, one way I see people play it safe is writing from experience. It’s tough to argue with “in my experience …” It’s the shift from personal experience to generalizations where contraversy happens.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@JD Meier: A healthy dose of self-discipline is required and I think at the core you have to be really honest with yourself. Otherwise you will just make excuses to do nothing and not make change.