This Is Why We Don't Hit Our Goals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this GREAT article on why we don't reach our goals, Heather Quisel states that there are two kinds of people:  

1. Those who set grand, lofty goals; and 
2. Those who don't set goals out of fear of embarrassment or shame when others see them fail.  

She left out the third category:  those of us who beat ourselves up when we fail to reach our targets. 

As a writer, I don't tend to set specific goals.  I fall into both categories 1 and 3.  I'll think to myself, "I need to work on my novel", or "I need to finish my novel".  Perhaps it's because of the vagueness and loftiness of my goal that it becomes unreachable.  

In college, we had a target of writing 1,000 words of our novels/day, 5,000/week.  I learned how to produce vast amounts of words, and I reached these targets every week.  However, this did not guarantee the quality of my work, and it took a long time for me to regain confidence in my ability to write well - confidence I had had before I had a word count target to meet.  Eventually, the words flowed, but I went through searing self-doubt before I reached that stage. 

This article suggests that we set an activity goal, rather than an achievement goal.  .This will definitely help with problems two and three:  self-criticism and fear of criticism from others.  

I've decided to set myself a minimum goal.  Not to finish my novel, just to work on it a little every day, five days a week.  (I'm not disclosing the specifics here, but I do have them).  

If you feel anxious about meeting your target, or you are disappointed in yourself and wish you had achieved more in 2020, give yourself a break.  Set a minimum activity goal, one that is truly achievable for you, and  stick to it.  You may surprise yourself by what you achieve! 

What are your goals for this year?  What strategies do you use to reach your goals?  Please comment below.  

Go here for my audio on How to Achieve the Results You Want.  

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Review of The Big Short

You may have seen The Big Short, the movie with Brad Pitt. The movie is great, but, I promise you, the book is even better.

The Big Short charts the months leading up to the 2008 financial crash – from the point of view of people who predicted the crash, and profited from it. 

Go here to buy it on Amazon.com    Go here to buy it on Amazon.co.uk  

If you ever wondered what, exactly, caused the crash, this book makes it very clear in a way that's both easily understandable and, in fact, funny. It will put a smile on your face and may even make you laugh out loud.

The author, Michael Lewis, manages to make what you may see as a dry subject engaging and entertaining.  He achieves this largely through drawing short but very effective portraits of each character.  

 

The Big Short describes a handful of people in the world of high finance who could see what was coming. They (probably) weren't psychic, they just paid attention. Their colleagues and wives (these experts were all male) thought they were crazy. Nobody wanted to get on board with their predictions, but, somehow, they managed to find each other, and to come up with different ways to profit from the situation.

For example, Michael Burry auto-enrolled his finance clients in his vehicle. He had created this vehicle specifically in order to bet against the market. He was paying huge insurance fees every month but, when he hit, he hit big. He, and all of his clients, made enough money to keep them and their families for generations to come.

Have you ever read a book that's so good you never want it to finish? That's how I feel about The Big Short. I keep putting it down and picking it back up again a few months later. As a result, I have read – and enjoyed - some parts over and over again.

Thus, I have come to understand, in a certain amount of detail, exactly how and why the 2008 crash happened.

It was a combination of greed, stupidity and hubris – the belief on the part of those who manipulated the financial markets that they were right, no matter what.

As I said, I never wanted this book to end. But we all know how it ended. People lost their jobs, people lost their homes, and people – like you and me – had to endure years of austerity. For example, government cuts, reductions in services for the elderly and the disabled and, certainly in the UK, cuts to the health service. And some financial services had to accept that they were not “too big to fail”. Meanwhile, the rich continue to get richer.

If you want to understand how, read this book.

And bear in mind, this can all happen again. 

Please leave your comments below and please share this with your networks.  Thanks.