海角大神

Setting and pushing toward goals has been an incredibly positive and powerful part of my life over the last several years. Goal-setting and progress toward goals helped me build The Simple Dollar, helped me get out of debt, and helped me build a successful marriage and a strong connection to my children. It helped me write two books, take on leadership positions in the community, and build a wonderful group of friends that I value and rely on.

That type of perspective makes goal-setting sound like an unbeatable approach to life, but, just like anything else,聽it鈥檚 really easy to mis-use goals.

The easiest way to misuse them?聽You have so many goals that you鈥檙e not really able to move forward on any of them.

If I were to sit down and list out every goal I dream of achieving at some point in my life, I could fill up聽bookswith those goals.

If I were to designate all of those goals as聽active goals, I would never achieve any of them because of the sheer effort needed to make all of them happen at once. I would be spending so much time figuring out the next step on so many projects that I鈥檇 never move forward on any of them.

My solution is simple.聽If I have a goal I would like to achieve in the future, I simply write it down as a 鈥渟omeday鈥� project.聽I have a really long list of those goals and projects.

Most of the time, I have ten or so different ongoing projects and goals. This is just about the perfect number for me.

What kind of things am I talking about? One is being a good parent. Another is being a good spouse. Yet another is keeping up with my writing for The Simple Dollar. Yet聽another聽is working on a book I鈥檝e been writing.

Some of these are long-term goals 鈥� things that will last my whole life. Others are shorter-term goals 鈥� things I want to achieve this year.

Each day, I try to have one thing on that day鈥檚 to-do list from each of my active goals and projects. This way, I know I鈥檓 moving forward on each of my goals.

If I find that I鈥檓 not able to move forward on each of these goals each day, I relegate one or two of them back to the 鈥渟omeday/maybe鈥� list. If I find that I have some extra space in my life, I鈥檒l go through that 鈥渟omeday/maybe鈥� list and pull up a new goal, plotting it out for the future.

Sometimes, I鈥檒l decide that one of the goals I鈥檓 working on is no longer really important to me. If that happens, I鈥檒l swap it with another 鈥渟omeday/maybe鈥� goal.

Regardless of all of this,聽I only spend my time focusing on those ten goals/projects.聽Other than simply jotting down the idea, I generally don鈥檛 waste a moment thinking about other goals during a given day.

Now, each week, I聽do聽spend some time playing 鈥渃atch-up鈥� and going through my goals to make sure I鈥檓 moving in the right direction with each one, and that鈥檚 when I鈥檒l make the decision to swap goals. Outside of that, though, I try not to think about it at all and instead focus on completing my to-do list for the day (and generating tomorrow鈥檚 list).

This process keeps me focused on goal聽progress聽above everything else.聽A goal is useless 鈥� even distracting 鈥� if you鈥檙e not moving forward on it, so I strive to keep my goals separated into ones I鈥檓 actually working on and ones that I鈥檓 not even thinking about.

This has worked really well for me over the past several years.

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