Defining Goals in Vision
- Thread starter Jurgen_W
- Start date
The heureka moment in this for me was when I read the chapter about goals and milestones in 'Business Plan for Dummies'. They defined a goal as a broad vision that always lies ahead and a milestone as a specific measureable unit towards that vision. Another good book regarding the definition of goals is 'Workday Now'. The author applies this same principle of a combination of a broad vision and SMART milestones on a personal level.
In general I recommend Zig Ziglars work on goals. He is very down-to-earth get-going in a funny way and also offers a process of establishing and setting goals. IMHO he is the best on this subject. I also profited from 'Time of my life' by Tony Robbins, but his stuff is kinda pricey and not that special to justify the expense, IMHO of course.
In general I recommend Zig Ziglars work on goals. He is very down-to-earth get-going in a funny way and also offers a process of establishing and setting goals. IMHO he is the best on this subject. I also profited from 'Time of my life' by Tony Robbins, but his stuff is kinda pricey and not that special to justify the expense, IMHO of course.
Making it All Work
Explaining the Horizons of focus in better detail was one of the main purposes for David's third book "Making It All Work." It's about as good as it gets.
If your like me, you already have enough goals, visions, purposes, etc. in your life to last you a 1000 years. The issue is having the perspective necessary to be able to choose which ones. That's what MIAW is all about.
Explaining the Horizons of focus in better detail was one of the main purposes for David's third book "Making It All Work." It's about as good as it gets.
If your like me, you already have enough goals, visions, purposes, etc. in your life to last you a 1000 years. The issue is having the perspective necessary to be able to choose which ones. That's what MIAW is all about.
Cpu_Modern;92407 said:
Perhaps you could also think of a "Vision" as something that is not solely dependent on you but depends on external factors. For example, if part of my vision is to be an astronaut then there are a lot of external factors that may determine if I achieve that part of my vision. But if that's really what I want then my goals should be smaller measurable tasks (SMART) that ARE in my control. For example, finish an engineering degree, improve my physical fitness, get my pilot's license, apply to the program etc. In that sense there isn't a huge difference between a goal and a project. Some of have called goals 'uber-projects'.
ero213;94011 said:
Ah, that's a good distinction.
I think of the Horizons of Focus like this:
more concrete < ---------------------- > more abstract
....................................^
................................../...
................................/.......
Lifetime.................../.Purpose....................50,000 feet
5-year.................../........Vision..................40,000 feet
1-year................../.Goals...........................30,000 feet
ongoing.............../..............Roles...............20,000 feet
3-month............./.Projects..........................10,000 feet
1-hour............../.Actions............................runway
......................------------------------
Your insight helps me understand better what I might
mean by "more abstract": i.e. less under your control.
In this conceptualization, Actions, Projects, Goals and Lifetime Purpose
are all pretty much similar things but with different timescales,
except that as the timescale gets longer they get more abstract.
Vision and Purpose are also similar to each other although
Vision is quite a bit more abstract than Goals.
I think of Vision as being associated with an alpha-wave mind state.
I started being able to keep the different horizons straight in my mind
when I associated timescales to them while reading
"Making it All Work". Specific numbers of tens of thousands of feet in the air
don't tend to associate with any images in my mind, although the
overall image of going higher and seeing further does.
I tend to find the 30/40/50K stuff doesnt knit together as neatly as runway/10k/20k kind of stuff. As a result I dont worry too much about how they relate.
You could have an area of focus called 'Being healthy' - but there might be a dozen long term reasons why you have it - seeing your kids grow up, being able to do certain things at points in your life, working til a ripe old age or just for the fun of it.
So what works for me is that I have a bunch of inspiratonal bits and pieces - lists, mindmaps and pictures of my long term goals. Obviously there is also an internal picture. Every couple of months I scan through them all and look at my areas of focus and check that they all seem to be represented. If they're represented multiple times, fine. If they're not representated at all then I think about what I can do about it.
Then every month or so I do the same with areas of focus and lower - are there any longer term goals, or projects, I need to think of to keep these moving.
That seems to do it for me, on the personal front. Work is a little different.
You could have an area of focus called 'Being healthy' - but there might be a dozen long term reasons why you have it - seeing your kids grow up, being able to do certain things at points in your life, working til a ripe old age or just for the fun of it.
So what works for me is that I have a bunch of inspiratonal bits and pieces - lists, mindmaps and pictures of my long term goals. Obviously there is also an internal picture. Every couple of months I scan through them all and look at my areas of focus and check that they all seem to be represented. If they're represented multiple times, fine. If they're not representated at all then I think about what I can do about it.
Then every month or so I do the same with areas of focus and lower - are there any longer term goals, or projects, I need to think of to keep these moving.
That seems to do it for me, on the personal front. Work is a little different.