Goal Setting

As a promise to a friend, I said I would publish my goal list for last year as an example of well.... goal setting. I explained that by merely writing a goal down, for me at least, they have a way of coming to life and coming true. I get a strange courage when I see them on paper (computer screen), because they become real to me. (I wonder if this works for grander goals, like 'start a business', or 'make $1m this year', 'conquer small African country and name after myeslf'.)

I try to set a wide range of goals. I start with very specific things I need to get.. like a new cell phone and work towards more general, like, "become more kind."

My goals come from a larger set of desires and goals I have written down. It's in a file called wholeself.txt and is a list of everything I think a person should know. Perhaps I will publish that sometime. But I doubt anyone cares about my narrow philosophy.

So here is the list for 2007:

That's the list of things I accomplished. My original list of goals was MUCH longer. With the new job, shock of graduating, and lack of mula, I had to shorten it. Most of it ended up on the 2008 list.

The one thing I don't like about this stuff is that it's so mechanical. Between this and my calendar I sometimes I get a bit claustrophobic due to lack of spontenaity. To counter this what I've done is made my goal list intentionally too short. To give me room to add things or take breaks or just do whatever the fuck I feel like doing.