Goals

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What kind of goals did you accomplish? How did you do it?

What kind of goals did you fail at? What made you fail?

How often do you set goals? Do goals give you structure or do they overwhelm you?

Yes, I have 2 primary long-term goals I am currently working towards: a career and marriage

Also I have a bunch of secondary shorter-term goals I'm working on too!! !

Haven't yet succeeded with marriage or a career HOWEVER I am now officially engaged and very close to getting married!

goals, not sure

from sheep herding, the learned lesson,
you need a plan, but most likely it will go not as planned
preparation, preparation, most time is won by doing as thorough as possible preparation
hasty is always going to be more difficult

and be calm,
the more you panic the more everything goes south

everything will be alright, eventually

Getting a girlfriend. That was a very early one and although I kind of achieved it, my "success" eventually led me to realise that the goal needed modifying, so it became one of finding a partner I was fairly compatible with, learning how to get along with them in peace and harmony, and cultivating strong bonds of friendship and loyalty with them. That took me a lot longer, and I don't think anybody every achieves it 100%, but my level of achievement there is more than good enough for me, and for her, I trust.

Getting and keeping friends. I never had too much trouble with that, especially when I stopped being quite such a selfish jerk, but there have been many times when I've felt dangerously near to becoming friendless, and I've had to spend many days back-to-back where the only people I've spoken to have been shopkeepers. That still happens to me for a while every year. I don't suppose I'll ever balance my wish for plenty of good company and my wish for enough space to get everything done. And so much is beyond my control. All the open-mic venues in my home town are closing down, friends move out of the area, friends die, friends are too busy, and my tendency not to be outgoing seems inexorable. But maybe I've already got the best balance there is, and wouldn't be as happy if I were with people much more often than I am. Quality is more important than quantity, and I seem to be an incorrigible perfectionist. The trouble with perfectionism is that it's never achieved.

Recording and performing good music, preferably with other musicians. Again it took me a very long time, and I was crap when I started out, and have tapes to prove it, but little by little I inched forwards and I can now entertain people quite well with my live music and I seem to impress them with my recordings. I'm usually quite pleased with my results in both departments. Annoyingly, I still seem to get "better" results as a solo artist than I do when playing with others, but I get at least as much pleasure from the latter, and wouldn't give that up for the world. My view of what constitutes good music has changed. It used to be all about precision but somewhere along the line I got into something rather more wild. Although my nerdy brain will probably always drag me back to an excess of tidyness, I'm convinced that something more immediate and dirty is the higher road for me. So again, I'm not really there, but it would be a shame if there were no new horizons to go for. I gave up trying to make money out of it a long time ago. I've no head for business and I don't want commercial pressure to compromise my self-expression.

One goal I kind of achieved with music was to make a multi-track tape recorder from domestic machines and electronic components, in the days before multi-track recording machines were affordable. I slaved away for ages on that, teaching myself about the technology I'd need. The result wasn't the best quality, but at the time it was a lot better than nothing, and it finally allowed me to play all the instruments of a rock band.

Getting and maintaining personal comfort. I've always been uncomfortable in my own body so it'll probably always be an uphill struggle, but I keep discovering tips and tricks to keep myself comfy. Lack of money will probably become a severe problem not long from now, because there's nothing like a nice chunk of capital for keeping things safe and cosy, and that's slipping away. And of course old age is creeping up on me and may well undo a lot of the progress I've made. I just hope I don't know a lot about it when it finally brings me down and kills me. But for now I'm OK, and it's been that way for most of my life.

I didn't really plan much of this, I just found myself plugging away at things. I've never been one to set out life goals. I more set myself small goals and enjoy getting those to fruition.

I personally achieve far fewer goals now that I'm married to a woman that thinks that positive thinking is the only thing that actually matters and prioritizes short term over the long term. So, step one is don't get involved with people that have no interest in actually getting anything done, it just makes any sort of achievement that much harder.

But, personally, I have the most luck with goals that are of a specific time period, are set by somebody else and where somebody else decides whether or not I've actually followed through with them.

Independent of that, whatever goals I do set need to be ones where I can chunk away at them over time and can leave the work in a state which makes it easier to start and restart.The best way I've seen to do that is to start with the end goal and then identify the thing that's stopping me from just doing it. Then I'll look at that thing and see what is blocking me from doing that and continuing until I find something that I can do right now. Those things go on a checklist to get me where I'm going. But, the real issue there is that the roadmap will get me there, it only does so if I remember what I'm supposed to be doing and can maintain some motivation.

IMHO, the motivation and the tracking where I am in the process are by far the most important aspects of the whole process as it doesn't matter how well designed the goal is if you give up due to a lack of motivation or organization.

I accomplished my goal of learning how to be a value investor. I read the Intelligent Investor to learn how.
I am failing at my dream of marrying a woman who was raised in the Church of Christ. I just have not found the right woman yet and its hard because the Church of Christ is in serious decline and has a limited dating pool and there was no suitable women for me where I used to live.

Be my best version of myself.

I have never had any goals and I have never accomplished any achievements. I did graduate from college but that wasn't a goal of mine, just something that was expected, by my parents and more generally. I don't even really understand the concept of goals because they seem so abstract. I don't know how to make a tangible plan to achieve a specific goal. But I feel fine about it. I don't wish that I had accomplished something. I feel accomplished enough in my ability to think and have ideas. I've had to give up on most things because of my chronic illness. Otherwise I would have liked to be an artist, which I am good at.

The thing is with goal-setting, it is easier to start small and work on the short-term stuff first before attempting to tackle the bigger things

For me, marriage and a career are NOT my only goals!! !

I have other much smaller goals relating to my passion projects and other things in adult life to work towards like learning how to drive and getting a job first!

I'm not sure. Right now, my main goal in life is to reestablish some routine and 'normal' into my little world again, since that all has fallen apart and gone to sh** over the last month or two, and I paid for that, am still paying for that. Most of my goals are small things, like finish some of a to do list, prepare for some outing and recover from it, and so on...mundane crap.

I did run a half marathon with my oldest daughter last fall though. Never did that before. That was a goal. Our time wasn't great, but the only goal we had in mind was to finish, and we did exactly that.

The half marathon preparation didn't do my normal routine a lot of favors, since so much of my time was spent on that. That one wasn't overwhelming...I like exercise, and it chills me out, so it wasn't too disruptive, overwhelming or anything.

I don't really set big goals. No, that's not true. I set out to finish university a few times and failed miserably. School overwhelmed me terribly and I couldn't hang for too long before quitting each time, until I finally stopped trying altogether. So I guess as to if goals give me structure or overwhelm me, I suppose it depends on the goal.

^
Overwhelm is a key word with me and goals - i.e. the thought of big goals overwhelms me. So I just do small steps. I suppose I do achieve big goals eventually, but I prefer it if I'm not conscious of them. Just looking at the distance I'd have to cover to get there would make me feel ill. I'm better at focussing on achievements that are within my immediate grasp.

I also have an aversion to enslaving myself to anything much by planning my life out and making huge swathes of my time spoken for. It probably ends up that way regardless, but I'd rather not know about it.

So there's a big psychological element to it all. Rather than trying to kid myself into thinking I can move mountains, I'll kid myself into thinking that I'm not attempting anything so foolhardy, that I'm just doing a little bit of work and that I'll soon put it down. I suppose I miss out on the planning stage, but somehow it doesn't seem to make much difference. I seem to have an intuitive feel for what steps might lead to bigger things.

I've succeeded at both of those, but have lots of other goals in life I have failed at so far.

Always started small, but with a eye towards building a larger ...thing or goal. . . . Enough small successful things piled up can be a good thing to grow yourself from. Trades jobs , training . A certificate program if possible, Shorter term classes .. Of a job you can use as a back up when times are hard. Especially one in a necessary trade. "Whatever it can be" Then think of where you biggest expenses might be in your future . And address that in someway . Practice pragmatism in your expenses. Until you have enough to be nice to yourself once in a while after monthly expenses are covered...So it all still feels worthwhile .All the while keeping an eye out for good opportunities All good goals to watch out for .

The biggest goal I have achieved is finishing my Bachelor of Psychology. It took me a bit longer than most people to finish it. This was because I had trouble with my mental health during it, and I ended up in hospital a few times. Uni kind of burnt out my love of reading given the amount of reading I had to do for research papers. So not everything went great and dandy.

After uni I decided I'd like to learn more about computers. I finished Certificate III in IT. Some parts were difficult to me, like Networking. Others were easy, like Microsoft Word (love the amount that can be done with it). I also learned how to make basic web pages with HTML and CSS.

However I came undone when I tried Certificate IV in Programming. I thought I would like it and find it easy. Instead it was the hardest thing I've ever tried to get my head around and I failed it. Or rather, I quit.

A goal I have now is to finish an online Proofreading course. It's American and I'm Australian so some parts are difficult. I'm taking it at a slow pace so that I'll remember the content.

Congradulations on the bachelors degree,,Maybe we should be writing "Doctor Renaeden" Thats alot of work you did
to get to the place you are ..And following up with Computer Science type stuff ( programming etc.). Keep these great accomplishments in your back pocket( in your head). So you will have abilities to remind yourself and anyone you help along the way , As a type of Professional.

Somewhere along the line my brain began to refuse to retain any information that others suggested I should learn, unless I could clearly see what practical use it might be to me, or happened to feel some natural interest in it. It's not so much that way if I study things myself. So doing set courses became rather difficult for me, though I was still somehow able to muddle through to get the passes I felt the need of.