The G.O.A.L. Method

“I prac­ticed the art of get­ting more things done rather than get­ting the really impor­tant things done well.“
– Alec MacKenzie

“We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things.“
– Jim Rohn

Now is the time to set your GOALs. Your “guides” are goals that will most likely stem from your per­sonal val­ues because, hav­ing gone through the process so far, you will have a pretty good idea of what kind of goals you truly want. Take a new sheet of paper and write at the top the words “My Guides.” Then, write down what you want to be, do, or have.

By tak­ing your val­ues you have listed and pri­or­i­tized, asso­ciate a goal to each value and pri­or­i­tize your goals accord­ing to the order your val­ues have taken. Place a goal to which a value cor­re­sponds best. In other words, don’t look at the goal in itself but at its mean­ing. Some goals will end up with no value at all, which means exactly what it says — they have no real value whatsoever.

You should write them off com­pletely and for­get about them imme­di­ately. These goals can cause you to feel unsat­is­fied, unful­filled, and unhappy. If not, just hav­ing them around can take your focus away from other goals that are more valu­able and stop you from reach­ing them.

After you’re all done, re-​​prioritize your goals accord­ing to the spe­cific order you have given them through their align­ment. They may not nec­es­sar­ily respond to the exact value num­ber. They sim­ply fol­low suit accord­ing to the level of impor­tance you have placed on them by har­mo­niz­ing your goals with your per­sonal set of pri­or­i­tized values.

Now, take a new sheet of paper and re-​​list your newly pri­or­i­tized goals. After that, you can start work­ing on your goals with greater peace of mind and assur­ance. As Carl Trum­bell Hay­den once wrote, “Suc­cess is get­ting what you want while hap­pi­ness is want­ing what you get.”

The next step in the GOAL method is “O,” which stands for objec­tives. Objec­tives are mini-​​goals or mile­stone goals. Objec­tives come as a result of break­ing a larger goal down into bite-​​sized chunks that are eas­ier to achieve.

They are like check­points where you will be able to track your goals and eas­ily detect and cor­rect any devi­a­tions. They help to ensure that you’re on the right track since, after you’ve reached an objec­tive, you can make appro­pri­ate cor­rec­tions, focus on what’s impor­tant, change your objec­tive, or change your goal altogether.

So, take a new sheet of paper again for each and every goal, and write at the top the words “My Objec­tives For (the goal you are work­ing on).” Divide the goal up into as many parts as possible.

Instead of work­ing on a goal with a dead­line and prob­a­bly feel­ing frus­trated because you pro­cras­ti­nated until the last minute, you are achiev­ing smaller goals within smaller time frames. You will become more pro­duc­tive and know where you’re going rather than be dis­tracted by unpro­duc­tive and often­times urgent activities.

We now get to “A” of the GOAL method for defin­ing your actions. These are activ­i­ties that will lead to the accom­plish­ment of each objec­tive. Ask, “What are the ’causes’ I need to pro­duce the ‘effects’ I want?” “What steps must I take in order to reach my objectives?”

By break­ing your goals down, you will likely dis­cover what activ­i­ties are truly impor­tant rather than urgent. In fact, some activ­i­ties you never thought of will come to you almost automatically.

How­ever, blindly tak­ing mas­sive amounts of action hop­ing some­day it will pro­duce the results you want can be very time con­sum­ing and frus­trat­ing. As Alec MacKen­zie once wrote, “If you’re fly­ing a plane and you’re lost, you may be accom­plish­ing a lot just as the plane is going 600 miles an hour… But the bottom-​​line is that the plane is still lost.” Jim Rohn also wrote, “If some­one is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need moti­va­tion to speed him up; what he needs is edu­ca­tion to turn him around.”

So what you do now is take a sheet of paper for each and every objec­tive and write at the top the words “My Actions For (objec­tive).” For each indi­vid­ual objec­tive, write down all of the activ­i­ties that are required for reach­ing your objec­tive. You’re prepar­ing an action plan, so to speak, and by devel­op­ing action plans you will be able to tell how well you’re on track towards your goals (i.e., how well you are stick­ing to your pri­or­i­ties). If objec­tives are mile­stone goals, then actions are like step­ping stones towards your objectives.

At this point, you need not con­cern your­self with dead­lines. You need only con­cern your­self with the knowl­edge of what you must be doing, and how impor­tant it is, at any given time. To do this, you must put “live­lines” on your activ­i­ties, which is the “L” por­tion of the GOAL method.

Live­lines are dates by which your activ­i­ties are to be ini­ti­ated. They help to stream­line and con­cen­trate your focus on what’s impor­tant at any given time, and make sure that you’re stick­ing to your pri­or­i­ties at all times. In other words, live­lines are meant to guide you and not force you into action.

With each action plan, put a start-​​date on each activ­ity. Remem­ber that live­lines are guides that will tell you what’s impor­tant and when they are impor­tant, rather than what’s urgent or when they are to be fin­ished by. You do not need to pri­or­i­tize them because, in real­ity, they have already been prioritized.

But in order to put real­is­tic live­lines on each activ­ity so that you don’t end up with a moun­tain of them, ask your­self this pow­er­ful ques­tion: “Does it mat­ter? Does it mat­ter right now? And if so, how much?”

Tack­ling or hoard­ing lists of unim­por­tant activ­i­ties can deter you from fol­low­ing your pri­or­i­ties. They will cause unwanted grief by caus­ing you to not reach your goals and, worse yet, to step over other goals let alone other values.

About the Author

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