Marc and I recently recorded a podcast talking about goal setting. As we wrapped up our conversation, I suggested that maybe I would have more success with setting goals backwards. It was a moment of humor, but it was also a serious reflection about me and goals.

Let me clear. I get stuff done. I get big stuff done.

I just tend to intuit my way from achievement to achievement. I have a sense of direction, and begin heading there. When a challenge comes up, I grab what is within reach to overcome the challenge, to skirt the challenge, to plow through the challenge. I move from challenge to challenge with a great deal of luck most of the time.

Except when I don’t. Then I get discouraged, and quit. Which usually looks like finding a new interest or focus. Because I would never want to admit that I quit something.

When I went through Agile training to learn about Scrum, the elements I found most appealing and curious were the regular check ins for a project.

Up to that point, my conscious goal work was mostly to say “XYZ needs to be done by this date”. I didn’t break it down. I didn’t have check ins. I didn’t review my progress. I didn’t define done.

I ultimately only ever felt overwhelmed in my failure when a deadline came around and the goal hadn’t been hit. Or I would be pleased when (somehow) the goal was accomplished.

• What is your relationship with goals?
• When do goals serve you best?
• Who sets the goals you are holding?
• How often do you review (and revise!) your goals?

What I am learning about goals is that even though “Goal” sounds like a perfect finish line, goals are really an extended, intentional process of gathering data. Goals are like a dot-to-do picture, where at each dot is a time to stop and look around for the next path. Goals draw a picture, but they are not the picture.

Friday at five doesn’t mean we are done our work. It means we are done this week.

Goals aren’t end points, even though they are often talked about as moments of completion. Goals are landmarks on a path. I don’t know any healthy person who has set a health goal that once they hit it they stopped working on their health. I don’t know of one product that has gone to market and not continued to be tweaked and developed and marketed and tested. I don’t know of one happy relationship that when an anniversary was celebrated that the work of being in a relationship stopped.

If I look back over the goals landscape in my history, I have some pretty terrific pictures that came together. As I look ahead with curiosity about my future, I can see that having goals that include smaller sections and intentional pauses that I might have more connection and peace with the pictures that have yet to be created.

I’d love to learn from and and with you. Do you have any favorite goal processes to share with me?