Get Everything Done

I listened to Stever Robbins (Get It Done Guy, no relation to Tony Robbins) this morning.
http://www.steverrobbins.com/living-an-extraordinary-life/

(The talk doesn't need the slides.)

Worth the hour, which surprised me, and I'm glad I didn't speed it up or multi-task. It's on my ever-expanding list of things to listen to again, eventually, since there are many nuggets in there that called almost as strongly as the first.

First takeaway. Paraphrased and possibly not exactly what he intended, but I like it.

When setting a goal, we should ask, "Will the goal send me on an interesting journey?"

All of my sillier goals (shorthand, singing lessons, fiction-writing) have, in fact, sent me on interesting journeys. They've created interesting conversations with people outside the field. I've met interesting people. They've often branched to totally-unrelated equally-interesting journeys. Even the goals that didn't seem silly at the time (learn website-design and start a small business -- glad I looked at the competition after the fun part and before the hard part!) have led to interesting journeys. Some of them are ongoing. (We need you on the executive because you have skills none of the rest of us have. And while you're here,...)

We've heard "life is the journey" often, but this phrasing sunk in better. The old phrase implies that we can skip goal-setting, or that the goal is the journey (circular). The new one helps us create multi-purpose goals, and helps us re-evaluate goals when they don't lead us on interesting journeys.

I miss the enthusiasm I had for my early goals. Getting an education and starting a good career was easy to buy into. Now, though, the time for even a year of school doesn't interest me, and add the question of whether potential employers will also want a piece of paper. Probably Resistance Number 10, unsure of whether the investment will pay off.

I'm going to focus on evaluating possible goals in light of the journey they promise for a while, with a dash of "why am I resisting picking that goal?", and see what happens.