“Before you score, you first must have a goal.” Greek Proverb
Have #goals but have trouble realizing them? Below are some goal-achieving concepts that could help as you actualize your life.
Guiding
Principles / Foundations / Core Values
- Principles / foundations/ core values (summarized as “principles” here) are fundamental axioms to follow when carrying out an endeavor, be it career move, relationship goal, personal project, or life purpose.
- Principles are things that are most valuable to us. They answer the question: “Why should I do this?”
- For example: “I am writing 21st Century Personhood because I believe together, humanity can solve the biggest problems in the 21st century.” On principle, I believe in humanity and its abilities.
- Principles are closely tied with personal belief and value system, and thus rarely change. There may be many principles involved an endeavor — a famous example is the Ten Commandments — but they should be distilled into the core essence.
- Should principles be breached or violated, the entire endeavor would become meaningless, or worse, contradict one’s belief system.
- Principles are not to be confused with rules and regulations — the latter are imposed by external forces such as a society or an organization and may or may not represent one’s own values. For example, the law may punish homicide because it harms members of the society, but this is different from “ thou shall not kill”, which values human life as precious and hence should not be harmed.
- Also, we often mistake traditions or common practices as principles. For example, tradition may reject same-sex marriages but your value system may not.
- And principles are not goals; they can’t be reached or checked off the list (source).
- It is important to be aware, understand and question our principles so we don’t fall into the trap of mistaking others’ principles as our own.
- Principles ought to guide everything involved in an endeavor, including vision, mission, strategies, goals, methods, plans, tasks, and key results.
- We will have a dedicated discussion on life values in Life > Life Perspectives > Core Values & Motivation.
Vision
- Vision is the end goal. It depicts what long-term success looks like in a big-picture view. It can be broken down into time frames, e.g., 1, 3, 5 year vision. Storytelling (Life > Methods > Life Stories) is a kind of vision for our life.
- Vision is results-oriented and seldom changes. There should be only one vision per endeavor to avoid having too many directions and losing focus.
- It is best to express vision as something akin to the ending scene of a story so it’s vivid and memorable.
- For example: “I envision a world where humanity collaborates to tackle critical challenges in 21st century aided by the concepts outlined in 21st Century Personhood.”
- Vision is inspirational and future-based — it should not be bogged down by short-term limitations of reality. Here are some resources that can help you envision your future.
- Do not confuse vision with goals — whereas you can have many goals at different stages of realizing a vision, there should be only one vision.
- Also, do not mistake strategy — the approach to tackle an endeavor — with your vision. When attaining a goal, we may take many routes or even change courses, but the ultimate destination that our vision points to should always be the guiding light.
- It is important to be aware, understand and question our vision to ensure it is the right destination we’d like to get to.
- Vision is informed by principles, and steers mission, goals, strategies, methods, plans, tasks, and key results.
Mission
- Mission describes the most important things to do in order to realize the vision based on the principles.
- It is action-oriented and seldom changes. There should only be one mission to avoid having too many ideas of how to realize the vision.
- Mission often starts with “To…”, for example, the way I choose to realize my vision is “to write down and share 21st Century Personhood concepts with the world”.
- Mission is best expressed in simple and concise terms so it’s easy to remember.
- Mission is often confused with vision — the former describes action to take to make the latter a reality.
- It is important to be aware, understand and question our mission to ensure it is the right key action to take to accomplish our vision.
- Mission is informed by principles and should cover your vision in its entirety. It steers goals, strategies, methods, plans, tasks, and key results.
- We will have a discussion on lifelong mission in Life > Life Perspectives > Purpose & Pursuit of Happiness.
Principles, vision, and mission are only pipe dreams if they are not executed. Below we’ll discuss concepts relating to carrying out a goal.
Executing
Strategies / Tactics
- Strategies and tactics are one or more tailored approach to carry out the mission and achieve the vision.
- Strategies and tactics are goals and results oriented; they frequently update to adopt to changing circumstances.
- You may have a strategy for each aspect of a mission, e.g., for 21st Century Personhood, I have:
- 1. A writing strategy to finish the books;
- 2. A publishing strategy to share the writing;
- 3. A marketing strategy to promote the published writing;
- 4. A networking strategy to connect with like-minded people…
- Compared to strategies, tactics are generally shorter-term or smaller in scale.
- Strategies and tactics are not to be confused with methodology — the former are always tailored to the mission and the latter is a generalized approach proven to be effective in solving similar problems.
- Do not mistake strategies as goals — the means do not justify the ends.
- It is important to carry out and iterate on strategies to find the best approach.
- Strategies are informed by mission, methodology and heuristics, and steers goals, plans, tasks, and key results.
- Some of Life > Life Perspectives can be seen as life strategies or tactics.
Goals & Objectives
- Goals are vision broken down into milestones, sort of like stops one makes in a journey. They answer the question “what and when we need to accomplish in order to realize the vision step-by-step?”
- For example, in terms of publishing, my goal is to “maximize reach” and one of my objectives is “to post on Medium every week to reach more readers.”
- Whereas goals are more long-term, directional and inspirational, objectives are specific targets to attain in the short to medium terms in order to accomplish longer-term goals.
- Objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound), and they can be mapped to more than one key results (see more below).
- Goal and objectives are action-oriented, and periodically changed — many organizations, for instance, have monthly and quarterly goals and objectives.
- To make the most progress, set “two goals: an 80–20 and a 50–50. 80–20 goals are the ones you have an 80 percent chance of achieving. These goals are attainable, and hitting them will motivate [us]. However, they will not help [us] stretch and perform at a higher level. Therefore, it’s also important to set 50–50 goals, which you have only a 50 percent chance of achieving. While these goals are more challenging, they are also far more satisfying to reach… If you find you always reach or exceed your 80–20 or especially your 50–50 goals, it’s likely you have set your sights too low.” (source)
- When we examine all of our goals in different aspects of life, a goal hierarchy would emerge. We “not only have a spectrum of goals from the specific to the abstract, but they’re arranged hierarchically where the more abstract goals, the long-term goals, are more identity-relevant [i.e., closer to our principles]. They’re more important to us as people…” says grit expert Angela Duckworth.” To enhance flexibility and perseverance, she advises us to give up low-level goals when they don’t work, but be rigorous about high-level, longer-term goals. “So, I think the secret of applying grit correctly… is to be tenacious at the right level of your goal hierarchy.” For related discussions about grit, see Self > Principles > Growth Mindset and Life > Principles > Open Life View.
- Goals and objectives are not to be confused with strategies and tactics — the former pertains to what and when, the latter describes how.
- Avoid taking goals and objectives as tasks — tasks should be broken down from goals and objectives into smaller units so they are easy to execute.
- It is important to carry out and iterate on goals and objectives to keep making progress towards the vision and mission.
- Goals and objectives are informed by vision, mission, and strategies, and steers plans, tasks, and key results.
Plan / Schedule / Milestones / Roadmap
- A plan / schedule / milestones / roadmap (summarized as “plan” here) is a step-by-step outline of tasks to do in order to execute a goal or an objective.
- For example, I have a weekly schedule to write, publish, market and network for 21st Century Personhood.
- A plan needs to be realistic so not to fall into planning fallacy and hurt progress (see Self > Mind Hacking > System 1: Cognitive Biases) .
- Milestones are significant goalposts or targets to be reached within a plan. Hitting milestones signifies that you are on track to achieve relevant objectives.
- The tasks that make up the plan need to accomplish the objectives, otherwise efforts are misdirected and wasted.
Tasks / Actions / To Do
- Tasks / actions / to do’s (summarized as “tasks” here) are specific things to do broken down from goals and objectives and informed by strategies, tactics, methodology and heuristics.
- For example, my task today is to finish a draft of this segment.
- A task is a smallest unit of action to carry out all of the above: principles, vision, mission, strategies, goals, and objectives.
- Tasks are goals and results oriented, and constantly change. Because they are the bottom level in achieving goals, tasks are many in number.
- It is important to carry out and iterate on tasks to make progress towards relevant objectives, but try not to get lost in the details and forget the big picture.
Methodology / Framework
- Methodology / framework (summarized as “methodology” here) is “a body of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline” (source).
- For example, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound) is a common methodology in setting useful objectives.
- Employing a methodology teaches us how to solve complex problems that have been systematically solved and studied before.
- Methodology can be employed as a strategy, but is not exactly strategy — the former is generalized to a discipline and the latter should be specifically tailored to the endeavor at hand.
- It is important not to let methodology limit your flexibility or creativity in achieving goals.
Heuristics / Best Practices / Guidelines / Case Studies
- In problem-solving, heuristics / best practices / guidelines / case studies (summarized as “heuristics” here) are practical shortcuts or rules of thumb that are “not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, short-term goal or approximation” (source).
- For example, I find that writing a bad first draft is almost always more practical than waiting for inspiration to come and move me to write the perfect prose.
- Heuristics are not set rules to be rigidly followed. You can always find better ways to carry out a task. It is important not to let heuristics to limit our flexibility or creativity in achieving goals.
- Compared to methodology, a heuristic is piecemeal, lacking structure or systems to formally explain why it works. Avoid only following heuristics and try to learn the right methodologies to increase effectiveness in the long run.
- For more about heuristics, check out mathematician Marcus du Sautoy’s book The Art of the Shortcut in Math and Life 📖.
For in-depth discussions on the executing concepts of achieving goals, refer to Self > Method > Iterative Learning, Groups > System 2: Collaboration > Agile Methodology and Design Thinking.
Evaluating
Key Results / Success Metrics / KPIs / North Star / Acceptance Criteria
- Key results / success metrics / KPIs / North Star / acceptance criteria (summarized as “key results” here) are different ways of quantifying and qualifying the progress and performance of an endeavor. Key results should always be aligned with measurable objectives in attaining relevant goals and carrying out the ultimate vision.
- Key results are objective-oriented, and frequently change.
- They always correspond to one specific objective and should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound):
- Specific: tailored to the relevant goals and objectives;
- Measurable: for example, “with the words ‘number of,’ ‘percent,’ ‘ratio,’ ‘average,’ ‘sum’ or ‘delta’ (difference between A and B)” (source);
- Achievable: reachable within relevant constraints;
- Realistic: supported by data, fact-based rather than opinion-based;
- Time-based: achievable within a given timeframe.
- For example, my writing progress is measured by writing one segment per week. It is specific to the writing project, measurable in number, achievable given my abilities and constraints, realistic to carry out, and time-bound.
- Success metrics or KPIs are units used to measure progress. For instance in a writing project, success metrics or KPIs can be word count, pages, extent that the arguments are supported by evidence, or quality of the prose. There can be more than one success metrics or KPIs for each objective.
- The North Star, on the other hand, is the single most important measurement of success. In 21st Century Personhood, my North Star is number of readers reached and informed.
- Have 1 north star and 3–4 success metrics — keeping the measurements of key results simple ensure that they are used and useful.
- With key results, you can test and improve your execution by:
- 1. Informing strategic/tactical decisions;
- 2. Revising plans and tasks;
- 3. Exposing problems and opportunities;
- 4. Pushing to achieve stretch / 50–50 goals and objectives.
- Startups often use a “dashboard” showcasing the latest key results to track progress. You can borrow this concept and draw up dashboards for your projects too, e.g., if you are doing a writing project too, you can plot a chart of pages written per day over time.
Reviews / Retrospectives
- Reviews and retrospectives are qualitative reflections on how an endeavor is faring. One example is yearly performance review at workplaces.
- In an agile setting, you usually recount three things in a retrospective: what worked, what didn’t worked, what can be done better next time.
- It is a good idea to have regular reviews and retrospectives to improve the performance of an endeavor, as well as to make sure that its strategies, goals, objectives, plan, tasks, and key results are still aligned with the corresponding principles, vision and mission.
For further discussion on the evaluating concepts of achieving goals, refer to Self > Principle > Context Matters & Things Change & and Groups > System 2: Collaboration > Agile Methodology.
Sources:
- Why You Need a Vision, Goals, and Metrics (in that Order)
- How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Company’s Vision
- Vision and Mission Statements — a Roadmap of Where You Want to Go and How to Get There
With open life view and life actualization as our principles (see Life > Principles > Open Life View and Life Actualization through Moral Struggles), life story as our vision (see Life > Methods > Life Stories), and goal-achieving concepts as our methods, let’s explore some life strategies in the form of life perspectives (Life > Life Perspectives).
Do you have any suggestions, doubts, hypothesis or experience for this topic? Please comment below 👇!
