Not All Your Goals Need to be Done Right Now

After writing about limiting your goals a couple of weeks ago, I’ve faced a couple of situations where I’ve had to take my own advice (something I’m not always very good at…)

1. Toastmasters. If you’ve not heard of Toastmasters, it’s a non-profit organisation to teach people public speaking, leadership and confidence skills. I went as a guest to a local meeting last month – and really enjoyed it. I was keen to throw myself into learning public speaking.

I’m beginning to recognise that this feeling of enthusiasm is generally a warning sign for me to take a step back and to think about the implications of starting on a new goal or taking on a new commitment. I’m very good at feeling really enthused and motivated to begin with … only to find my energy quickly petering out when I realise I’ve taken on more than I can handle.

2. Monthly income target. The second situation was with a financial goal that I’d set, but which was draining my energy rather than adding to it. I had a target that I wanted to reach within the next ten months or so, but chasing this was going to be pushing me into getting less from my life and ignoring my real priorities and values.

Setting Aside Some Goals (For Now)

I wrote before about keeping your number of goals-in-progress to a reasonable level. I suggested a few ways there to decide which goals to set aside – essentially, by choosing your “if I could only do one thing…” goal, then adding a second and a third.

There are a few other points to consider when deciding which goal gets priority at the moment:

Which Goals Can’t Be Achieved Later?

I’m a member of Naomi Dunford’s SpeakEasy – a great online course for small business owners. I’m catching up on past recordings, as I only joined recently (it’s currently closed for new members but you can put your email address in to be alerted when it next opens). In the call beautifully titled “How to Choose Between Eight Million Ideas”, Naomi talks about how some goals can’t be done at any old point.

Here’s a few examples:

• If you’re a woman and want a baby, there are biological clock issues.
• If you want to be a professional athlete, you’ll need to do this early in your life.
• Some opportunities are easiest to take during certain times. For example, you’ll have a lot of opportunities as a college student (from making friends to pursuing an area of academic passion) that won’t be so easy in the future.

My creative writing MA course starts up again in a couple of weeks; I’m acutely aware that I’m now half-way through and only have a year left. There are opportunities at the moment (weekly workshopping with other students; regular feedback from my tutor, the fantastic Francis Spufford; numerous academic and literary events) which won’t be easily available in future.

Most of us have situations in life that offer opportunities that we’ll struggle to have in the future. Perhaps you and your spouse are currently childless: there are certain goals (maybe travel or a sabbatical) that will be harder to achieve once you have kids. Maybe you currently live with your parents and don’t have to pay rent: starting a business, or spending a year volunteering, will be much easier now than when you have large monthly outgoings.

Which Goals Support One Another?

If you feel like you have too many goals on the go, or if you’re thinking about which new goals to commit to, then another tip I picked up from Naomi is to consider which goals are mutually supportive. Some goals will naturally feed into one another.

For example, if your goals are to lose 50lbs, to run a marathon, to start a blog and to learn the guitar, and you have to set one of them aside for the time being, I’d suggest leaving out learning the guitar.

• Losing weight and taking up exercise will benefit one another
• Starting a blog won’t directly help your weight loss or exercise, but if you use the blog to write about these goals, you could:
  • Have a public way to track and measure your progress – gaining accountability
  • Share what you’re learning about dieting and exercise, which might encourage you to go further
  • Start building an image of yourself as a healthy person
  • Make contact with other people with similar goals

Learning the guitar might still be an important goal. But you could make the decision to put on hold for a year, until other goals are complete (or nearly complete).

Which Goals Are Currently Furthest Along?

When cutting down my list of goals, I’ve asked myself what’s nearest to being complete. As I write this, I’m a few thousand words away from finishing the first draft of my novel. There’s a lot of work to do on the redrafting, but I’ve obviously made considerable progress on this goal over the past year.

When you think about your own goals, which are nearly complete? Do you have several goals at a midway stage? If so, avoid taking on any new goals until some of those are complete.

Which Goals Should Wait For Something?

Sometimes, you might have an important goal which would be much easier to achieve if you wait a while. It may well be the case that you really want this goal – but that you’ll be able to achieve it with much less effort if you’re willing to put it on hold for now.

It could be that you’re simply not in a good situation to get started. Perhaps you have a lot of commitments (like a day job, caring responsibilities, young kids) that need your time and attention. You may simply want to wait until, say, your youngest child is in school.

Or it could be that achieving some of your other goals will make it much easier for you to accomplish this particular goal. Maybe one of your goals is to volunteer in a particular organisation, and another goal is to find a new career. Depending on the organisation and the new job that you want, it could be easier to make the career switch after completing your volunteering. Spending hours hunting for jobs and writing applications right now could be a waste of your time.

Which Goals Can You Put On Hold?

Something I’d not thought about until relatively recently was that it’s perfectly possible to set a goal without working on it. Here’s how:

We make a distinction between “setting” a goal and “working on” a goal. These are not necessarily the same thing … you can set goals that do not begin until some future date, even years from now. The idea is that you should be thinking of goals you’d like to shoot for in the future even if you are focused on other things going on in your life right now.

(How Many Goals Should I Have At The Same Time? on MyGoals.com)

I’d like to learn public speaking – but it can wait. I’ve set that goal, but I’ll start working on it in September 2010. Which of your goals need a future start date? Which goals won’t come to any harm at all if they wait?

(Tip: If you, like me, tend to get overenthusiastic about new goals and ideas, make yourself wait a couple of months between setting a goal and starting working on it. I’ve often bought books or materials in the past which I never ended up using, because my interest in a particular goal wasn’t sustained.)

Which Goals Are Your Priority Today?

Which of your goals can wait until next month?

Which can wait until next year?

Will you have the time and energy to enjoy the process more, if you’re willing to wait? Will you get more out of those goals by setting them on hold for a little while?

What needs to be started now? Where do you have opportunities that won’t easily come again? Which goals are time-sensitive?

As usual, I’d love to hear what you think – and how the above works (or doesn’t!) for your own goals.

I’ll be following this post with one about cutting out commitments, especially those that you feel pushed or pressured into – so make sure you’ve got the RSS feed, or pop your email address in the box below, so you don’t miss out!