Being goal oriented is one of my greatest strengths. It means I get a lot accomplished, I have focus, and I am less likely to waste time.
Being goal oriented is one of my greatest weaknesses. It means I can lose track of relationships, I forget to take care of my needs, and I get upset with myself for not accomplishing everything I set out to do.
The last item, in particular, frustrates my husband. When I started thinking what my goals would be for 2014, I asked him what he thought of my proposed goals. He told me he was fine with me working on any of the above, but reminded me that failing to complete the list of goals I’d suggested does NOT mean that I’m a failure. He wanted me to start out not too committed to accomplishment at all costs.
I acknowledged his concerns and mentioned how I’d already been tiering the goals in my mind – these certain ones were very important to me, the other ones not so much.
Hearing me explain this, he suggested that my goals sounded a little like a game – with different levels of achievement.
The seed that he planted took root and I began gamifying my 2014 goals.
I ended up with three tiers of broad objectives. Tier one objectives are most important to me (example: establish a church home). Tier 2 objectives are important, but less so (example: make home improvements). Tier 3 objectives are things that I think would be nice or fun but that I’m not super committed to accomplishing (example: cook recipes from the One – Pot cookbook I own).
Within each broad objective, I have a number of more qualitative goals that are then ranked according to difficulty. I have platinum goals, gold goals, silver goals, and bronze goals. Each type of goal gives a different number of points. Platinum goals are worth 4 points, Gold are worth 3, silver 2, and bronze 1 – except that those values are cubed for Tier 1 goals and squared for Tier 2.
In this way, I have a flexible list of things is like to accomplish and a way to pat myself on the back for accomplishing them – but no easy way to get upset with myself for NOT accomplishing them. It’s genius really.
I’m geared up and ready to play.
Ohhh sounds fun! Maybe I will play this game with my goals too! I never accomplish all of them either. :P
Sounds like a great idea! It’s hard to balance being focused on goals with enough flexibility to be available for things that spring up in the meantime, but both are needed. I remind myself if I don’t meet all my goals that I have made progress in some areas, and I know I haven’t been sitting around with my feet up eating bonbons and watching soaps, so something has been accomplished even if it wasn’t everything on my list.
HA! ha! I actually rather love that idea! I’d set goals if I thought it was likely that I’d achieve all of them. But since I know I won’t, I just don’t bother setting them. The only thing I seem to focus really hard on doing better every year is reading. That seems a practical thing to think about and Nightstand helps. Maybe if I wrote up a list of Things to Accomplish every month somewhere else and kept track. Oh well. It seems I have to work too hard to think of how to come up with goals. :P