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The one thing you must do before setting goals...(DW #851)
If you are anything like me, about this time every year, you ask yourself the same question: where did the year go?
Even though this year has been extraordinarily challenging for some, and seemed to be going by verrryyyy slowly as we spent time huddled up at home, looking back, it may feel like we started hearing about this new disease just yesterday . . .
Although many things have changed, there are some that haven't, including our habits and the way we tend to use our time.
Some of us get into a mad dash at the end of the year, trying to accomplish everything that we meant to do this year. Others are already thinking ahead to January and planning what goals they want to set for next year.
In order to start the next year off well, there is a very important step we can take right now.
Taking stock of this year as it ends.
Writing an end of year reflection is an excellent way to acknowledge your successes and wins and start considering where and how you might do better next year.
This...
Failing to achieve is not failure(DW# 842)
That is the bad news.
The good news is that persevering towards ambitious projects is valuable for our growth, regardless of whether or not we achieve the specific goals.
I love how Ben Franklin puts it:
"Tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it."
This is the key: that we will be better and happier human beings for having attempted ambitious self-development goals whether or not we achieve our goals.
Goals versus systems(DW# 841)
Here is your daily dose of Wisdom for Living Your Best Self!Benjamin Franklin set up a system whereby he continued to work on his endeavour of achieving moral perfection.
The way his project was set up reminded me of what Scott Adams says in How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big is a great book with lots of wisdom which we shall perhaps explore at another time.
For today, I want to focus on what he says about setting up systems rather than focusing on goals:
"You could word-glue goals and systems together if you chose. All I’m suggesting is that thinking of goals and systems as different concepts has power. Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of...
Write it down(DW# 837)
As we have been discussing, Ben Franklin had written out in detail what he wanted to achieve and grow within himself.
He was onto something.
Researchers have found again and again that those who write down their goals are much more likely to achieve them (between 1.2 and 1.4 times more likely!)
Writing down goals (rather than trying to commit them to memory) has immense power because:
1) Once goals are externalized and written down, they act as visual cues, they can be reviewed and accessed at any time (even if your brain is distracted by other things).
2) if you just THINK about one of your goals or dreams, you’re only using the right hemisphere of your brain, which is your imaginative centre.
On the other hand, if you think about something you want to achieve, and then write it down, you also tap into the power of your logic-based left hemisphere.