Discussion Forum > Themes, not goals
Whereas I tend to think of goals as being like Google Maps, where you enter where you want to be and it tells you step by step how to get there. It gives you a choice of routes and also corrects you when you go wrong. And if you decide to change destinations it will alter the route to get you to the new destination from where you've got to.
The satisfaction values would be according to whether you were driving a Rolls Royce, a Ferrari or a battered old jalopy, what sort of country you were driving through and what the weather and road conditions were like.
The satisfaction values would be according to whether you were driving a Rolls Royce, a Ferrari or a battered old jalopy, what sort of country you were driving through and what the weather and road conditions were like.
March 21, 2022 at 11:59 |
Mark Forster
Mark Forster
I recently learned to think big picture in terms of Growth rather than Goals. Growth is a direction, not a destination, which I agree with Mark that goals are destinations.
Another problem with _focusing_ on a goal is that once you get there, you run out of things to do.
With a growth mindset, the focus here is more on the journey. It never ends, but you continue to enjoy it. To guide you in the right direction, it is useful to have small goals that step you forward. But maybe don’t focus on the possibility of failure. If your true path is self-progress, then even the failures to reach a goal are progress, if you can learn from these.
Another problem with _focusing_ on a goal is that once you get there, you run out of things to do.
With a growth mindset, the focus here is more on the journey. It never ends, but you continue to enjoy it. To guide you in the right direction, it is useful to have small goals that step you forward. But maybe don’t focus on the possibility of failure. If your true path is self-progress, then even the failures to reach a goal are progress, if you can learn from these.
March 22, 2022 at 0:05 |
Alan Baljeu
Alan Baljeu
My books, marriage... even having children in my early 40s, all started out as goals. I did not find the accomplishment of a goal led to a dead end. In fact, the successful completion of a goal provided me with the confidence and gumption to set more ambitious goals.
Over the past few years, I have noticed that productivity authors and podcasters have soured on goals. They use terms like "systems" (Scott Adams), or Themes (Mike Vardy). To my mind, the implementation of these ideas sound/look very familiar to good ol' goal setting.
To date, Covey/Merrill's "First Things First" is still my favourite resource for goal setting, planning, etc. Barbara Sher's "Witchcraft" is a close second.
Over the past few years, I have noticed that productivity authors and podcasters have soured on goals. They use terms like "systems" (Scott Adams), or Themes (Mike Vardy). To my mind, the implementation of these ideas sound/look very familiar to good ol' goal setting.
To date, Covey/Merrill's "First Things First" is still my favourite resource for goal setting, planning, etc. Barbara Sher's "Witchcraft" is a close second.
March 22, 2022 at 15:08 |
avrum
avrum
I don't like the false dichotomy that some people present between goals and systems. I rather like the way that David Allen integrates them as Horizons of Focus. There, you have:
Horizon 0: Ground Floor
Horizon 1: Projects (Specific short term outcomes/goals)
Horizon 2: Areas of Focus/Roles and Responsibilities
Horizon 3: Longer goals (1 - 3 years)
Horizon 4: Vision
Horizon 5: Purpose and Principles
What I like here is how there's a constant shift between action-oriented thinking and outcome-oriented thinking. So, to accomplish some short-term outcome, there's some specific action or set of actions you need to do. To implement longer goals, you have to take on some specific roles and focus on specific areas of life (systems/action thinking). To really settle into something purposeful and meaningful, it's helpful to have a vision of what that might look like.
I've seen it over and over again that you can't really have good systems alone, nor goals alone. You need to have some direction, and you need to have some method of working towards something.
I think where people began to sour on goals was the perception that they induce negative anxiety and lead to inaction. However, that probably means you've not really set a good target goal for where you're at. Also, the dogged pursuit of goals that require a life that you won't even find meaning in is somewhat suspect.
In the end, you have to do something, but having a wider clarity can make that doing a lot more enjoyable.
Horizon 0: Ground Floor
Horizon 1: Projects (Specific short term outcomes/goals)
Horizon 2: Areas of Focus/Roles and Responsibilities
Horizon 3: Longer goals (1 - 3 years)
Horizon 4: Vision
Horizon 5: Purpose and Principles
What I like here is how there's a constant shift between action-oriented thinking and outcome-oriented thinking. So, to accomplish some short-term outcome, there's some specific action or set of actions you need to do. To implement longer goals, you have to take on some specific roles and focus on specific areas of life (systems/action thinking). To really settle into something purposeful and meaningful, it's helpful to have a vision of what that might look like.
I've seen it over and over again that you can't really have good systems alone, nor goals alone. You need to have some direction, and you need to have some method of working towards something.
I think where people began to sour on goals was the perception that they induce negative anxiety and lead to inaction. However, that probably means you've not really set a good target goal for where you're at. Also, the dogged pursuit of goals that require a life that you won't even find meaning in is somewhat suspect.
In the end, you have to do something, but having a wider clarity can make that doing a lot more enjoyable.
March 22, 2022 at 15:27 |
Aaron Hsu
Aaron Hsu
Aaron:
<<Horizon 0: Ground Floor
Horizon 1: Projects (Specific short term outcomes/goals)
Horizon 2: Areas of Focus/Roles and Responsibilities
Horizon 3: Longer goals (1 - 3 years)
Horizon 4: Vision
Horizon 5: Purpose and Principles>>
I think I've given Covey/Merrill (7 Habits) and Allen (GTD) the ol' college try. From my experience, it comes down to which side of the beast you want to tackle first: the ass, or the head. I prefer top --> down (Covey/Merrill), but can see the benefits of bottom --> up (Allen). In terms of substance - imho - the similarities far outweigh the differences.
It's too bad both Covey and Allen took shots at each other. Covey called GTD "shallow", and Allen called 7 Habits "out dated". Both were referring to how each system handles tasks i.e. A, B, C vs Context. But the depth and spirit of Covey and Allen - to my reading - were coming from a very similar place.
<<Horizon 0: Ground Floor
Horizon 1: Projects (Specific short term outcomes/goals)
Horizon 2: Areas of Focus/Roles and Responsibilities
Horizon 3: Longer goals (1 - 3 years)
Horizon 4: Vision
Horizon 5: Purpose and Principles>>
I think I've given Covey/Merrill (7 Habits) and Allen (GTD) the ol' college try. From my experience, it comes down to which side of the beast you want to tackle first: the ass, or the head. I prefer top --> down (Covey/Merrill), but can see the benefits of bottom --> up (Allen). In terms of substance - imho - the similarities far outweigh the differences.
It's too bad both Covey and Allen took shots at each other. Covey called GTD "shallow", and Allen called 7 Habits "out dated". Both were referring to how each system handles tasks i.e. A, B, C vs Context. But the depth and spirit of Covey and Allen - to my reading - were coming from a very similar place.
March 22, 2022 at 16:11 |
avrum
avrum
I've been ruminating over the Change Matrix and its implications for goals.
The Change Matrix is basically a 2x2 grid. On the vertical axis is "Change" or "No Change". On the horizontal axis is "Positives" and "Negative". This gives you four quadrants:
Positives of Change Negatives of Change
Positives of No-Change Negatives of No Change
Another way to express the same four quadrants is with these four words:
Aspiration Fear
Momentum Pain
"Goals" generally live in the "Aspiration" quadrant. They are usually trying to address our "Pain" -- trying to eliminate the negatives of our current situation. But aspirations generally come with negative side effects, which generate Fear. This drives us back to our current reality -- where we already have momentum. But the current reality has negative side effects also -- this is Pain.
Sometimes we get stuck in this pattern of finding something wanting in our current reality, so we aspire to make a change, but we don't know how to overcome the fears, so we go back to the security of our momentum (inertia). We may even decide to live with the pain and give up on the aspiration.
Goal-setting fails when it is "too" aspirational -- when it tries to reimagine a whole new reality that is too far removed from the current reality. There are two problems with this. One, it is too abstract, too theoretical -- too much like an auto-generated mission statement. Two, it ignores the positive aspects of the current reality. The current momentum exists for a reason -- those reasons are almost always fundamentally positive, although they may generate negative side effects. I think the latter problem is worse than the first.
When goals are successful, and the aspiration is realized, an interesting thing happens -- a new current reality emerges. Achieving the goal establishes a new baseline -- a new core inertia. Sooner or later, this new baseline starts to reveal its negative side -- it generates a new set of pains. This generates a new sense of aspiration.
And so we have a cycle of growth.
To me, the most compelling thing about this model is how it unifies the idea of "goal" and "being". The aspirational goal takes us to new quantum levels of being. This Change Matrix framework made it clear to me that my ultimate goal is to establish a current reality that is fully positive and self-perpetuates the positive outcomes that I want to have realized.
The Change Matrix is basically a 2x2 grid. On the vertical axis is "Change" or "No Change". On the horizontal axis is "Positives" and "Negative". This gives you four quadrants:
Positives of Change Negatives of Change
Positives of No-Change Negatives of No Change
Another way to express the same four quadrants is with these four words:
Aspiration Fear
Momentum Pain
"Goals" generally live in the "Aspiration" quadrant. They are usually trying to address our "Pain" -- trying to eliminate the negatives of our current situation. But aspirations generally come with negative side effects, which generate Fear. This drives us back to our current reality -- where we already have momentum. But the current reality has negative side effects also -- this is Pain.
Sometimes we get stuck in this pattern of finding something wanting in our current reality, so we aspire to make a change, but we don't know how to overcome the fears, so we go back to the security of our momentum (inertia). We may even decide to live with the pain and give up on the aspiration.
Goal-setting fails when it is "too" aspirational -- when it tries to reimagine a whole new reality that is too far removed from the current reality. There are two problems with this. One, it is too abstract, too theoretical -- too much like an auto-generated mission statement. Two, it ignores the positive aspects of the current reality. The current momentum exists for a reason -- those reasons are almost always fundamentally positive, although they may generate negative side effects. I think the latter problem is worse than the first.
When goals are successful, and the aspiration is realized, an interesting thing happens -- a new current reality emerges. Achieving the goal establishes a new baseline -- a new core inertia. Sooner or later, this new baseline starts to reveal its negative side -- it generates a new set of pains. This generates a new sense of aspiration.
And so we have a cycle of growth.
To me, the most compelling thing about this model is how it unifies the idea of "goal" and "being". The aspirational goal takes us to new quantum levels of being. This Change Matrix framework made it clear to me that my ultimate goal is to establish a current reality that is fully positive and self-perpetuates the positive outcomes that I want to have realized.
March 23, 2022 at 0:55 |
Seraphim
Seraphim
avrum:
I literally grew up on 7 Habits and First Things sorts of thinking (my mother was a big fan and taught us explicitly). I think that helped a lot when I was younger, but I hit a bit of a wall when I encountered some of the things that Seraphim brings up.
I think the real crux for me was how one answers the question, "How do I make my goals a reality?" Or, put another way, "How do I get from here to there?"
What I got from the top-down model was one of hierarchically decomposing the goal down until it reached a point of executability and defined a schedule of sorts for implementation. The problem I always had was that this wasn't a realistic way for me to make progress in life. That kind of decomposition is designed around the idea of goals that are somewhat well understood and achievable, but I tend to emphasize goals in my life that are neither.
I don't find goals that are too practical to be very motivating. I also don't find goals where the path is already clear to be very valuable to me. That means that I innately dread a life lived by such goals. I've never been able to follow that sort of schedule and decomposition with any of my goals, which is why somehting like time blocking has never worked well, I think.
The goals I like are fundamentally dangerous in that they aren't really known quantities, and how to get there isn't really known either. There's too much "blank canvas" on the map from here to there. Moreover, there are probably a ton of different paths through which reveal different things, and so it's no good if I lock in a single path too early, even if only as a plan.
When I tried doing this when I was younger it just caused frustration and boredom. I think the big innovations that I've picked up which honestly may have started with GTD, but which are also present in Mark's long list and no list models as well as in my industry's Agile Programming practices, is the idea of not really worrying about the middle ground, but rather using the goals as an aiming point and then just acting from there. What I love about GTD in this sense is that you establish some sort of outcome, but you don't necessarily come up with a linear plan or decomposition of steps. Instead, you just get some ideas, and then figure out the next action. The same idea is present in the Little and Often concept. You just make a little progress. You don't have to write up long project plans or goal achievement steps, but you just make sure you make a little movement towards something.
This has had much more profound success for me than any of the methods where I have to connect the dots more fully. I am pretty sure I won't meet my goals at any given time scale, but the pursuit of them in the present leads to a good outcome that I'm happy with. And moreover, by not locking myself down much in terms of how I get to my goals, I end up having lots of exploration and discovery that improves my clarity at even greater horizons than just the level of outcome specific goals.
So, what I've ended up doing is more heavily emphasizing things like GTD's Horizons 5 and 4, or the Mission Statement kinds of things from Covey. I tend to be much less strict and rigid about Horizon 3 or the "big rocks" kind of things that Covey mentions in terms of real goals. I *do* think this requires a strong emphasis on Roles or "Areas of Focus" though.
There are methods like Agile Results and Full Focus which tend to really emphasize the middle ground of going from goals into sub-goals into specific projects and actions, but I've been unable to bring myself to really implement them and try them out because of my experience with trying to do that sort of stuff in the past.
So, I guess in terms of top down vs. bottom up, I'm technically in the bottom-up camp, except that I have always had a very strong high-level vision of my life, which I think makes the difference, even if i don't really have the middle range goals that are so popular. I think where people sometimes get into trouble with the bottom-up approach is when they forget to use the extra space they get from clearing out their lower level headspace to actually think about where they are going, and instead just fill it with more stuff to do rather than with more stuff to ponder regarding their future. I think this is where a lot of GTD practitioners have struggled, and where either reading some of Allen's follow up work or some of Covey's work would be really useful.
I literally grew up on 7 Habits and First Things sorts of thinking (my mother was a big fan and taught us explicitly). I think that helped a lot when I was younger, but I hit a bit of a wall when I encountered some of the things that Seraphim brings up.
I think the real crux for me was how one answers the question, "How do I make my goals a reality?" Or, put another way, "How do I get from here to there?"
What I got from the top-down model was one of hierarchically decomposing the goal down until it reached a point of executability and defined a schedule of sorts for implementation. The problem I always had was that this wasn't a realistic way for me to make progress in life. That kind of decomposition is designed around the idea of goals that are somewhat well understood and achievable, but I tend to emphasize goals in my life that are neither.
I don't find goals that are too practical to be very motivating. I also don't find goals where the path is already clear to be very valuable to me. That means that I innately dread a life lived by such goals. I've never been able to follow that sort of schedule and decomposition with any of my goals, which is why somehting like time blocking has never worked well, I think.
The goals I like are fundamentally dangerous in that they aren't really known quantities, and how to get there isn't really known either. There's too much "blank canvas" on the map from here to there. Moreover, there are probably a ton of different paths through which reveal different things, and so it's no good if I lock in a single path too early, even if only as a plan.
When I tried doing this when I was younger it just caused frustration and boredom. I think the big innovations that I've picked up which honestly may have started with GTD, but which are also present in Mark's long list and no list models as well as in my industry's Agile Programming practices, is the idea of not really worrying about the middle ground, but rather using the goals as an aiming point and then just acting from there. What I love about GTD in this sense is that you establish some sort of outcome, but you don't necessarily come up with a linear plan or decomposition of steps. Instead, you just get some ideas, and then figure out the next action. The same idea is present in the Little and Often concept. You just make a little progress. You don't have to write up long project plans or goal achievement steps, but you just make sure you make a little movement towards something.
This has had much more profound success for me than any of the methods where I have to connect the dots more fully. I am pretty sure I won't meet my goals at any given time scale, but the pursuit of them in the present leads to a good outcome that I'm happy with. And moreover, by not locking myself down much in terms of how I get to my goals, I end up having lots of exploration and discovery that improves my clarity at even greater horizons than just the level of outcome specific goals.
So, what I've ended up doing is more heavily emphasizing things like GTD's Horizons 5 and 4, or the Mission Statement kinds of things from Covey. I tend to be much less strict and rigid about Horizon 3 or the "big rocks" kind of things that Covey mentions in terms of real goals. I *do* think this requires a strong emphasis on Roles or "Areas of Focus" though.
There are methods like Agile Results and Full Focus which tend to really emphasize the middle ground of going from goals into sub-goals into specific projects and actions, but I've been unable to bring myself to really implement them and try them out because of my experience with trying to do that sort of stuff in the past.
So, I guess in terms of top down vs. bottom up, I'm technically in the bottom-up camp, except that I have always had a very strong high-level vision of my life, which I think makes the difference, even if i don't really have the middle range goals that are so popular. I think where people sometimes get into trouble with the bottom-up approach is when they forget to use the extra space they get from clearing out their lower level headspace to actually think about where they are going, and instead just fill it with more stuff to do rather than with more stuff to ponder regarding their future. I think this is where a lot of GTD practitioners have struggled, and where either reading some of Allen's follow up work or some of Covey's work would be really useful.
March 23, 2022 at 1:28 |
Aaron Hsu
Aaron Hsu
1, satisfaction and fulfilment can be postponed
2 it relies on fulfilment coming from achievement.
Now it is possible to rejig this system a little by thinking of a goal as something you will focus on in the day, such as living according to your values. However, for clarity I have started thinking of those goal-during-the day things as themes that will run through the day. I use this concept as a reminder. I find I become less future oriented and more present-satisfied in the day. One way I picture it is too think of goals as an arrow running from left to right into the future while I think of satisfaction, fulfilment, values as themes that run top to bottom to lift me up while I work towards the goal.