Goals that are not specific are not goals

Today I learn two direct but true facts: (1) I often fail in my learning not because I am not capable of, but because I want too many things, (2) Goals need to be specific.

I shared to my colleagues that this year I want to be more consistent. I also wish that I could improve my correlation between word and deed. One of the example is that last year I joined a new team to learn broader thing but end up did not spend enough time to learn. To that, my colleague said that it’s because I wanted to do many things. Also, because I had no specific goal or target that required me implementing what I was trying to learn.

Secondly, I learned that is less effective to say I want to be more consistent and to improve my ability to meet my words. That is because at the end of the year, I could not assess whether I have failed or not. And more importantly I have no idea on how I progress. Long term direction can be subjective but goals need to be objective. Another collegue adds, even something that is objective, it can be qualitative and so we need to translate into some quantitative goals so that it is easier to track.

I also learn that again with all the nice distractions, time becomes even more precious. Yesterday I managed to meet 2 of the 4 things I set. But today I did not touch the remaining two. Instead, I was working on other things, some are on the less important list from yesterday, and some are just created today.

So this shows the importance of making specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals to have SMART goals.