Annual goals: underpromise and overdeliver 🎯
Hey folks,
Me again.
It's been a wild couple of weeks at work, but I survived. In the next few days we are launching a thing that didn't exist at Auth0 before, and hadn't even been planned just a few months back. I'm extremely proud of the work I've done so far, and there's so much more of it coming up!
Anywho, this week I promised you to talk about my annual goal-setting routine. Let's get to it.
Why set any goals at all
One thing I've been wondering for a while was "why set annual goals at all? You plan something and then life gets in the way, and by the end of the year you feel disappointed that you've missed your targets." Well, a few things here.
First, goals are not plans. They are like a roadmap for an arbitrary period of ~365 days between arbitrary dates of January 1. That's all they are. You have a map of the year, but it doesn't mean that you have to follow it (this is how maps work, I've been told). Without a map, it's very difficult to figure out a route to your destination, or have some way points along the route you want to visit. So, the first reason to set some goals for the year is that you'll have a map which you may or may not follow.
Second, as humans we are easily distracted by life events. Some of us are more affected by these distractions than others (think ADHD folks), and without a clear list of things you aspire to achieve in the next 12 months, it very easy to end up a year later exactly where you started. Life is too short for this, so setting some concrete goals you aspire to achieve will help you keep an eye on what's important to you.
Finally, these kinds of goals have the potential to change your behavior. They will in all likelihood push you towards being a person you want to be, having the life you want to live, or be with people you want to be with. These goals are a kind of huge magnet that will inevitably pull you in their direction even if you don't get close enough to snap with them.
Goals vs Resolutions
There's a huge difference between resolutions and goals. I think about resolutions as aspirational statements, while goals are commitments to reach specific outcomes. When I want to actually get something done, just stating it out loud is not enough. It requires resolve, commitment, knowing the specifics. It's like drawing a map and packing gear for an upcoming hike vs dreaming about going on a hike. So when time comes, I choose to set goals and not make resolutions.
Realistic but reaching higher
So far I figured that whatever goal I set must be totally reachable. If my goal is to lose 100 lbs, or climb Mt. Tahoma, or get a major promotion, it's really nice to dream about this stuff, but chances are I'm not going to achieve all or any of these. Being realistic is key to making sure that you can and will get to your destination. I tend to make goals plainly achievable: I know beforehand that a particular goal is something I can do. But how is it different from a todo item? Well, goals that I set are project-like. If a goal is to work no more than 35 hours a week, there are specific steps and pieces that I need to get to first. A goal is a journey, and I can't stress this enough. When you plan a 1000-mile roadtrip, there are considerations, waypoints, itinerary — a whole lot of moving pieces even though the goal is to get from point A to point B, 1000 miles away.
There's another aspect of setting realistic goals: they have to be achievable but they also have to push you, at least a little bit! Like, visiting a nearby town, while technically a roadtrip, is not as rewarding or meaningful as driving to a National Park three states away. Both of which are more realistic than embarking on a trip around the world.
Don't get me wrong, it's totally fine to dream big. For example, I want to hike the entire PCT someday. Realistically, it's quite unlikely to happen without years of preparation. And these years of preparation are when I state smaller goals: hike around Mt. Loowit, do a week-long hike along one of the section of the PCT, get in a specific shape, and master specific gear. The difference here is the scale of the map: hiking the PCT is like a map of an entire, while individual annual goals are more like state-scale maps. And while hiking around Mt. Loowit is entirely doable (and I've already done it in 2020), it's still a significant push for me personally. As a result, achieving this goal is both rewarding and it gets me closer hiking the PCT.
It’s ok to fail
This is critically important to accept. It's totally fine to fail at one or even all your goals. There's a multitude of reasons why you have to accept it in order to successfully set annual (or any other) goals:
Many things are beyond your control. If your goal was to travel to Peru and then the pandemic hit, it's totally fine to fail. You have to have the mindset of not blaming yourself or project this particular failure onto your personality or self-worth.
People you think are always succeeding fail way, way more than you can imagine. You just don't see their failures and tend to think that if you can't be as successful all the time, you're a failure. The opposite is true: each failed goal is a learning experience, both in whatever the goal was about and in setting better goals!
Being ok with failure also gives you mental freedom to re-assess and re-adjust. If you dead-set on a goal and won't accept the possibility of failure, you may power-through at a cost that may not justify the goal. Being flexible and ready to adjust at any moment as circumstances permit is critically important not just for goal-setting, but for any journey or adventure.
It’s ok to celebrate
For me personally this is not as important as any other point, but rewarding yourself and celebrating even the smallest wins has tremendous motivational effect. What's important here is the two-fold approach:
Reaching the goal itself should be a reward (or at least have some level of fulfillment and achievement attached to it)
You cannot ever feel any level of guilt for rewarding yourself; you earned a celebration fair and square, you are entitled to giddiness, excitement, and a glass of your favorite drink, no questions asked.
Sometimes it's tricky, and believe me, I've been there. You just got a job you wanted, for instance, and you earned a celebration. But money is tight, the job is more demanding than you've anticipated, kids are being loud all day, and it doesn't feel like you're doing or have done enough. This is a lie that we tend to tell ourselves, and this lie deprives us of feel-good, "I won" moments. Fight it at all costs. You may be advancing a lot every day, but this lie will keep you miserable, deflated, and defeated, no matter how much you actually achieve.
Well, this was long but I think it's really worth talking about. Next time, we'll talk about some specific goals I have for my 2022, and how I'm tracking progress towards them.
Cheers,
Art