365QOD- Day1015

Plan the Journey NOT the Goal

“Is the goal more important than the journey?”- A philosophical question

I tend to be a goal oriented person.  When a goal is important to me, I identify what the goal(G) is and then break it down into objectives(O), consider multiple strategies(S) to achieve each objective, plan(P) the proper sequence through the objectives and which strategies to use, while assigning a daily action(A) while paying attention to the learnings(L).  This is my version GOSPAL version of Bryan Tracy’s GOSPA technique.

While reading 99U posts I notices this blurb by James Clear from iDoneThis:

“Instead of giving yourself a deadline to accomplish a goal and then feeling like a failure if you don’t achieve it, you should choose a goal that is important to you and then set a schedule to work towards it consistently.  That might not sound like a big shift, but it is.”

The L in gospaL is intended to make one realize to pay attention to the progress and to be wise enough to make adjustments.  The P in gosPal is the planning of the sequence and scheduling of the tasks.  I often use a 3 month window to fight through a worthwhile goal.  The A in gospAl is where the schedule is broken down on the individual tasks that need to get done in order to reach the ultimate G.

With this bit of breakdown, I conclude that James is correct and that my goal achieving procedure contains his idea of focusing on the schedule and the journey not the big goal.  This allows me to focus on the tasks instead of feeling overwhelmed at the size of the goal.

Today’s question is:

“Do you focus on the journey schedule or on the goal?”