Raise your hand if you ever had to sit through a tedious corporate seminar, with some gawky young couple in khaki pants and corporate golf shirts guiding you through a 60 page Powerpoint on the latest motivational program your company has now completely invested in. For now ... I note that within a few months things have reverted back to the same state of utter and complete stagnation outside of a few whimsical quips from the office comedian about "FISH" or "Cheese".
I always wondered about the young couple from corporate ... they were obviously thrown together from the pool of underpaid newbies or lackluster interns -- they are incredibly young, good looking and just all together chipper. I pretty much always assumed they had spent the previous summer dancing at an amusement park in the Rock of Ages Revue. Now they are assigned to travel around the country delivering seminars to irritable branch office workers who mostly doodle, sleep and incessantly check e-mails on their Blackberries for the entire time. Do they head out at 5 and hit the bars? I figure I would. Or do they disappear into a hotel room together until their flight at 10 am tomorrow. Again, probably not a bad idea. Or some reckless combination of both. Best not to dwell on those scenarios unless you are the accounting person trying to figure out why there is only one hotel invoice and why the expense receipt is all Jaegerbombs.
Maybe the idea of being taught goal setting from two aimless, goal-free almost teenagers had made me cynical. But once in a while, if you pay enough attention, you can gleam the occasional nugget of gold from these programs.
I am referring of course to SMART goals. If you have spent the last 10 years in Paraguay or you have never worked for or around a large corporation, you may not have heard of SMART goals. It's simple to learn: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. If your goal does not meet these five tests, it's probably not something you are going to achieve.
So let's dive in! I need to walk 90 some miles carrying a backpack for over a week and still have fun. That could be a goal, It meets the five criterion at first glance. But it kind of lacks specificity and how do you measure the fun part? Do I measure it before or after the trip? Perhaps we need to bust it out ... smaller goals that lead to more immediate results in support of this big overarching goal.
For example: Running. I just started a 9 week program that purports to take me from couch to 5K in 9 weeks. Very specific. You are not a runner when you start and you can run a 5k when you are done. Measurable? Sure ... every week you follow a specific plan to slowly increase miles. You either do it or you don't. Attainable? Well the Web site says it is. It looks logical ... 4 minutes of running with 16 minutes of walking to start, and you ramp up from there. OK ... Realistic! You have to dedicate 30 minutes three times per week. I can actually do that, especially in the morning. Since it requires very little equipment or prep time and I can end up back home in time to shower for work, sure ... it's realistic. And finally Timely. Well it will be done before the trip, it wraps up in 9 weeks, it supports the overall goal during my training period and it will help me lose weight on schedule. Timely it is.
Get the picture? My big goal is just two big. Break it down to small, measurable, specific goals.
Weight loss is a category upon itself and even though it appears to be a specific goal, there are way too many moving parts to weight loss to consider that to be a single SMART goal. I will cover more about that someday ... but for now I have implemented a series of plans, or SMART goals, that will help me.
So thank you Dylan and Ashley, or whatever your names are. You may not realize it but your message got through. Actually I doubt you care ... by now you are married (no not to each other) and doing your best to forget about that horrible year. But I hope you listened to your own program and are applying what you learned to your lives every day.
Chasing a big fat goal is frustrating. Chasing a smart goal leads to success.
No comments:
Post a Comment