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Saturday, January 1, 2011

Guess what I'm doing?

I'm not telling!

It is that time when we wake up to renewed energy, big hairy audacious goals and then proceed to often flounder in a matter of a few short days. This year no resolutions, but I do have some goals - some pretty big ones, but for a change I'm not sharing.

WHAT? isn't telling people your goals, writing them down, having them be SMART (Google it if SMART goals are new to you!). Yes and no. I do have goals but this year only a few. Having too many goals, as many of us do at this time of year, does not lead to focus, and focus is key. I do write them down, but only for me. And I have no more than seven goals as I want to be able to remember them off the top of my head. They need to drive my behaviour, not be in a book somewhere where I find them as a reminder in November 2011 (I actually did that this year!).

No this year I have a few big outcome goals and a couple of critical process goals that will keep me on track. Come on we all know achieving our goals is simple - (eat less, exercise more and you will lose weight and improve your fitness level) but it is not EASY! Doing these key things is what leads to success, and you can't have 100 key things. 

BUT... I'm not sharing, well not yet anyway.  There is some very interesting research on telling people about your goals. What happens when you tell people about a great big goal? Well, you get support, pats on the back, lots of "you are amazing" and, well, those rewards are for just saying you will do something - not actually doing it, and many of us are never actually following through. This changes our social reality, and there is lots of good social science research in this area (almost a hundred years worth!).  For a simple but very well done piece on this see Derek Silver's TED talk on goals (short version here -well worth the 3 minutes!) 

So yes I do have goals and yes I will report back, but only after I've succeeded or failed.  So stay tuned! Happy new year, go set some big goals, a few that you really care about, commit and then shut up and get to work. And then let me know about your success!

1 comment:

  1. fascinating. i fit that bill to a T. i rarely proclaim before i achieve. :) and solid empirical data (results) are the things i trust the most for my own performance indicators. thank you for sharing.

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