Here is a pretty basic question:
Have you ever set a long-term goal and then not achieved it?
If so, you’re right up there with 99.99% of the entire human population.
One of the problems with long-term goals is that they’re incredibly difficult to achieve, and for the most part, we end up giving up on them and then feeling like failures.
An interesting approach that I learned from Matt Furey and from his book called Psycho-Cybernetics 365 is that it might be more productive and empowering to completely eliminate all long-term goals.
Does this mean we don’t achieve anything?
No. It turns out, we achieve lots of things.
In fact, you can prove it to yourself right now.
Here’s a quick thought experiment: Grab a pen and paper and write down the question, “What have I accomplished recently?” and then answer it with as many bulleted answers as you can. You’ll probably find that you’ve accomplished a heck of a lot of things over the last few days that were never written down as goals.
Does this mean we shouldn’t have any long-term goals at all?
Not necessarily. But, I think it’s definitely worth experimenting with different types of goals to find out what works best for you.
What would happen if, for example, instead of having only long-term goals, you simply set small, doable daily goals?
The method I use to do this is to start each day with the question, What have I accomplished over the last 24 hours? Then ask yourself another question: What am I going to do today? And write down a small list of your simple daily goals.
Some of these goals could be things you plan to do every day, like habits. And some of them could be tasks that are important for you to get done today.
I realise this sounds very basic, like you’re just creating a daily to-do list – and in a way, you are.
But the idea of this approach is to notice how much more you achieve after a month of only looking at your life one day at a time, versus spending a month focusing on trying to manifest big, hairy, scary, long-term goals.
Chances are good you’ll accomplish just as much — maybe even more.
This isn’t an either/or.
I believe in doing both.
You could have a handful of long-term, vision-type goals, and also some down-to-earth goals for today. The split for Matt Furey is about 95% focus on daily goals and only 5% on long-term goals. Most personal growth seminars I’ve been to have it exactly the opposite (lots of visioning & manifesting… not much down-to-earth focus on action-taking).
In the end, the biggest skill is balancing both things.
I heard it put most succinctly in a seminar I attended with Jay Papasan, the author of The One Thing. He said it like this:
“If you’re a visionary, focus more on daily action.
If you’re a doer, focus more on the vision.”
If you want to know exactly how to set up your morning in a way that leads to having a very successful, fulfilled, productive day, check out the free Productive From Fajr training available at:
