Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode 22, or Why does it matter how I phrase my goals?
The Power of Responsibility: A Whackadoodle discussion with my student regarding a simple technique that helps people keep the promises they make to themselves.
“I still don’t get how the whole MASTERing your goals works. I’m not even sure why it matters,” she muttered under her breath.
I sighed, and tried to explain again, “It’s about setting goals you can actually keep, and not making unrealistic promises to yourself.”
“I get that part,” she said impatiently. “I also get the whole acronym thing. She began reciting like it was a poem:
M stands for measurable A stands for accountable S stands for specific T stands for timely E stands for exciting R stands for realistic.
“What I don’t get,” she continued, “is how to MASTER anything.”
“I’m not asking you to master anything,” I said. “I am asking you to know the difference between a MASTERed goal and a vague goal; a goal that has no end, no specifics, no excitement, no accountability.”
“I still don’t see how it makes a difference.”
“It’s the difference between saying, ‘I want to be an actress,’ or saying, ‘I’m going to audition for Pippin this weekend.’” I insisted. “One is a dream; one you can do.”
“Because the goal has been MASTERed?” she said sardonically.
“Yes, because I can measure my success. Because I am accountable and not dependent on someone else to accomplish it. Because it’s a specific action that I can take. Because I have the time and is the right time to do it. Because it’s exiting enough to get my stomach churning. Because I can realistically accomplish the goal. Whether I get the part or not, I’ve accomplished the goal. I have not made an unrealistic promise to myself.” I had a sudden thought that made me laugh.
“What’s funny?” she asked.
“I was just thinking that whether you get the part or not, you are already an actress.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because more than half of an actress’s job is attending auditions.” I shook my head to erase the many memories and focused on my student. “So have I made my point?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I suppose so. But I still don’t understand what to do with it.”
“No, I think you understand perfectly. It’s just that you are afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid that your goals won’t give you what you want because you don’t have a clear vision of what you want. Afraid that that the goals you do have might fail. It is easier to say that it was too hard to try, than it is to say that you tried and failed.”
“Now you are being ridiculous.”
“Am I?”
She pulled out her notebook without saying a word. She tapped her pencil on the table like she was a judge bring us to order. “I believe this week we are in Rule Ten: The Power of Responsibility. I say that we stop this ridiculous discussion and focus on the topic at hand.”
“I respectfully suggest that we have already been discussing the topic at hand.”
“How so?”
“Because MASTERing goals is all about responsibility. It’s right there in the acronym.”
“R is for realistic, not responsibility.”
“There is also an A for accountability. What is another word for accountability?”
She lowered her head in submission and added under her breath, “Responsibility.”
“Good,” I nodded. “Now that we have cleared that up, would you care to try MASTERing just one of your goals? Perhaps once you have, you might start to see value in the exercise.”
“You first,” she sat up stubbornly.
I looked at her from over the rims of my glasses. “Okay, you know how long we have been working on this project of ours, right?”
“How could I forget.”
“Well, all along I’ve this idea that I would reach out to my friends and tell them what I am doing. Share my vision. Ask them to take part. But every time I would begin to reach out, I would find something else more important to do. In other words, I would chicken out. At some level, I was afraid to reach out.”
“Why?”
“Not sure. I think I was afraid of the result. Would my friends even care? That’s when I remembered my old friend Pareto.”
“What does the 80/20 rule have to do with it?”
“Well, I woke up one morning and remembered the rule, and realized that no matter what happened 20% of the friends I contacted might well unfriend me, 60% would likely ignore me, and 20% would probably enjoy hearing from me. They might even find value it what I was doing. Realizing that truth kind of freed me up to actually MASTER a goal.”
“And how did you MASTER it?”
“Well not by saying, ‘I will have 100 people subscribed to my newsletter by my birthday.’ That’s about as accountable as saying, ‘I will lose 20 pounds by Christmas.’”
“So, what did you say?” she asked with growing impatience.
“I told myself that I would contact twenty friends each day and see what happened. I would be able to measure my success. I was accountable and not dependent on someone else to accomplish it. It was a specific action that I could take. I had the time, and it was the right time to start sharing my work. It was certainly exiting enough to get my stomach churning. And it felt like a realistic ask. Whether my friends unfriended me, ignored me, or chose to check out what I’d been doing didn’t affect my ability to accomplish the goal.”
“What happened?”
“One person kind of told me off; fourteen people ignored my message; and five people chose to subscribe. Now those five people will hear from me more than once a year.” I chuckled to myself. “I actually did better than Pareto predicted and had some wonderful conversations with people I hadn’t heard from in years. All in all, it was a good day.”
“So, are you going to keep the same goal every day?”
“I think I might adjust it a bit. Twenty people a day turns out to be a bit unrealistic. I’d have no time left to write articles, take care of my dad, or tutor you. Maybe, five a day, ten a day, twenty a week. Not sure.” I look at her with as much seriousness as I could muster. “When you MASTER a goal, you don’t write in stone. You adjust as you go along. The important thing is that you are able to keep the promises that you make to yourself. Got it?”
“I think so.”
“Good, because now it’s your turn to MASTER a goal,” I told her, taping my finger on her notepad to emphasis my point.
She scrunched up her face in distaste, and turned her pencil towards the paper while I watched.