Setting goals is one of those quirky activities our grade school teachers tried to get us to do every year, on the first day of school. They’d sit us down, pass around a handout with some hokey title like, “GOALS! WOOT! BOOYAH!” or something like that (it’s been awhile since I’ve been in third grade…). Then the teacher would twist up an egg timer to 15 minutes, and we’d “goal set” away with our two #2 pencils and the gentle, soothing ticking of the timer to calm our nerves.
What?!? Does anyone actually remember achieving any of these goals? Or even what they were?
Of course not.We were just humoring the old chap sentenced to babysitting us for the next 180 days with his or her busywork. We weren’t given instructions on how to set goals, what a S.M.A.R.T. goal was, or even why we were supposed to set them in the first place! We, like all good little boys and girls, were following instructions–a concept that has led us into dreary underpaid jobs with bosses and mundane lifestyles chasing after dreams.
Setting goals shouldn’t be so freakin’ scary. It shouldn’t conjure up nightmares of ticking time bombs and broken pencils, and it really shouldn’t be something we dread. Setting goals–ridiculous goals–can actually be a necessary, helpful, and very motivating exercise for us, if we’d only stop and realize its benefits. Setting goals:
- Can boost productivity by giving us a spark of recognition–we can look toward the future and realize it’s probably going to be better than the present.
- Can boost creativity by letting us, once again, be kids–we can dream big, forget colloquialisms that keep us “normal,” and be free
- Can help with our motivation–goal-setting can let us organize our thoughts, dreams, and inhibitions into manageable chunks of usefulness
- Can let us plan our life–do you buy a car before you get married? Do you save for a house or those 2.3 children you don’t have yet?
- Can help us relax–I can have my plate stacked with 10 other peoples’ plates, and just by writing everything down I can realize that I’m going to be able to get it all done.
- Can help us prioritize–is it really important to finish that TPS report now, or should you spend some time with your kids, ’cause God knows next week you’ll be slammed?
- Can let you see the brighter side of things–setting goals helps us realize why it is we do the things we do–the things we realize we probably shouldn’t do also end up on our goal sheets, and we can then cross them off since we’re not going to do them!
See what I’m talking about?
Setting goals is great. Setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely is even greater. But setting ridiculous goals–the ones that we’re not really even sure we’d be able to accomplish–is the greatest. In a ridiculous way.
Setting Ridiculous Goals
I’m an advocate of setting ridiculous goals, before I set the S.M.A.R.T. ones. I believe that setting ridiculous goals that are challenging, fun, extremely rewarding, and not-too-implausible helps remind myself of what I’m actually capable of.
Sure, some people can feel grounded, defeated, or beaten down after setting some ridiculous goals like, “I’m gonna be an astronaut yesterday!” because they’re so out-of-reach that there’s no way anyone could accomplish that (unless, of course, you were an astronaut yesterday–in which case I think you’re missing the point). Ridiculous goals are those things that we think about, dream about, then forget about in the day-to-day of our lives.
Ridiculous goals work like this: We dream about something we’d love to do, see, or be, like “working from home and bringing in enough to offset your and your spouse’s income in a year” or “writing a novel and getting it published by a large publishing conglomerate.” We think these things, dream these things, then our brains–knowing more than us, of course–“squelches” them away, and we write down “finish a novel” and “start a side business.”
Our ridiculous goals get replaced by normal ones. They get swallowed up by “real” goals–even before we’ve had time to realize why we’re setting them in the first place! Sure, I’d love to finish a novel–but that’s easy! I can do that during the next three-hundred lunch breaks at work! You can start a business, today actually, and let it consume your free time and then wonder–just before it “takes off”–why you did it in the first place… and you’ll remember it was that stupid “start a business” goal you set so many moons ago.
So no–we shouldn’t be setting goals that are ridiculously unachievable. We should be dreaming about what we’d like our lives to look like, then writing those things down. There will be setbacks, and there will be disappointments along the way. We all know that. But how disappointing will it be for you to look back and say, “yeah, I wonder if I could have actually got that business chugging along without me–I could be sipping martinis on a beach somewhere by now!” Maybe, maybe not–but I’ve found that when I shoot for the stars, sometimes I reach the moon–which is still pretty far away, no?
Here are a few examples:
- Once, I thought it would be cool to be a famous film-score composer
- Once, I thought I’d like to have a really cool action-packed fiction novel that I’d written on the shelves of major bookstores
- Once, I thought I’d like to marry the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life
- Once, I thought it would be amazing to develop and run a business that is mostly passive income, so I could work and play whenever and wherever I liked
How did these things turn out?
Because they were ridiculous goals, though still very achievable, I wrote them down and starting dissecting them. What does it look like to learn how to write a symphony? What about writing a novel? What kind of person am I, and what areas of life do I need to work on so I can woo this girl of my dreams?
All of those questions lead to “breaking down” these ridiculous–yet achievable–goals into key parts: the tactics that make up the strategy. Since my strategy is to achieve these ridiculous goals, the tactics became (also things I wrote down):
- Start to study music theory
- Consume myself with modern-day film-score composers and their famous works
- Start a blog, to practice writing
- Keep reading the kind of books I like
- Keep growing in my faith, so I can be a great spiritual leader for my future family
- Start a business–small at first, but start something to learn and grow from
See how it works? These “seeds” were ideas that I looked into–to see if I really desired the overall goals, and to see if I’d been on track with achieving them. How did everything turn out?
- I never became a film score composer (yet!), but I wrote a symphony (Symphony No. 1 in Bb – Visions) in a little less than a year, and it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Music for 2005
- I’m almost done with my (first) novel, which I’ll be working to get published and eventually try to sell
- I’ve married not only the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but also the coolest, funniest, sweetest, and most loving person I’ve ever met! CHECK!
- I’ve had a few different business, from fledgling startups to steady, passive income-generating websites, and I know so much more about this stuff now, I feel confident that I’d be able to scale them in the future
My point
Don’t worry so much about achieving your ridiculous goals exactly as you’ve set them–plan for failure. Don’t expect it, hope for it, or desire it, but plan for it. You won’t be able to do everything you ever hope and dream, unless you plan to do more than that and fail a little.
Get it? Sound off in the comments if I’m rattling cages, hitting the mark, or I’m somewhere in between.
Hey Nick:
This is my ridiculous goal: Climb Mount Everest 🙂 – hopefully your theory holds true and I'll be freezing my @$$ off on top of the mountain! Thanks for the post!
Dilanka 🙂
Haha, Dilanka–I wish you the best of luck in that goal!
And I have no doubt that you're going to be able to succeed in reaching that goal if you are able to visualize it, make it attainable, and actually work towards it!
Thanks for stopping by again!
Nick