[Clarity Skills]

Category: Goals

  • Jos et tiedä

    mistä aloittaa

    aloita pienestä

    mikä pieni asia

    tänään

    on fokuksena.

  • What do I always do in these situations?

    What runs in my family?

    Am I capable of change?

    When you start to become more aware of your narratives (e.g. internal voices telling you whatever), you can start to redirect them – that is, redirect your attention, and thus you spend your energy and efforts more consciously in this moment.

    What are my goals?

    How do I act now?

    Can I shift my focus towards the constructive today?

  • On Goals and Reaching Them

    A goal: publicly or privately expressed narrative about the desired state and outputs of a system

    A lot has been written about goals, how you define them, go after them and measure them. In this text my goal is to offer more philosophical and at the same time concrete view that clears up the mysticism and magic around goal-setting that to many is difficult to grasp.

    My desire with this text is that you, the reader, become more aware of how you understand, express and reflect on your goals (the desired state of the you-system).

    The narratives in the present moment reflect the system state (outputs), but with goal narratives we effectively direct the development (typically expressed as direction) of the system.

    Why this clarification?

    To set effective goals, we need to understand what we want to change, develop or improve upon. When we have a clear analysis and understanding of the current state of the system (say, of our personal life), we can set good, effective goals that take the system to another state.

    There is lot of guidance on setting SMART goals in an organizational setting, but my personal finding is that they, as expressed system states, rarely work in our own life. I think this is because they make everyday life feel like organizational development project. Maybe a goal reminds us of our ex-boss asking how we will measure and time-bind this or that goal, and we’re very much out in the land of negatives.

    However, the point in SMART goals in everyday life can rather be in developing the process of and orientation into regular, publicly expressed goal setting. (Even if just in the private family setting.) Developing that process can be very valuable even though the outputs (goals) can’t always be attained. Another point is to learn, through this process, to set and express realistic goals.

    Example questions when setting and expressing goals:

    • What is important to me? What is valuable today? (personally relevant)
    • What is valuable to the team or organization? (organizationally relevant)
    • What specific steps do I take towards the valuable state today, this week, this month? (specific, time-bound and achievable)
    • How do I track taking the steps? Who measures the goal and when? (measurable)

    Hopefully I was able to reach the goal that I stated in the first chapter of this blog post. Personally, the process of writing this post clarified my views on goal-setting, so I measure the writing process as successful.