In this edition I worte about the different barriers that avoid you from achieving your goals. In this one I talked about execution, in this one I am going to talk about the first barrier I mentioned: Knowing what we want.
How do we know what we want? How do we decide our objectives?
There is a similar process in all our decision making:
We look at what we want to achieve globally (the outcome)
We look at the decision variables
We assess their impact
We decide the objective
The theory is very easy, the practice is complex. Not everything goes through this framework, but it is like a pareto rule, 80% of our decisions will go through this process.
1. First we look at what we want to achieve
The first point is the simplest or the most complicated one, since you have to decide the output, which is not the mid-term objective, but what the objective will lead you to.
For example, if what you want is to be happier, your goal has to be something that impacts on the happiness of what you already have in your life. As I talked about in the Fear to Fail #2 post, 80% of our life is framed in Family & Friends, Professional Life and Personal Life, so what you have to consider here is how the goal you are going to take impact on those variables.
Think about what you want in each one, give it a spin, reflect, only then will you be able to improve your decision making in the underlying goal setting. Making mistakes is part of the plan, and surely it is something we must do to improve the plan of action and go on perfecting and adjusting our objectives.
This step is the most important, so you have to make decisions in order to get your general objectives, if not, you will be making decisions and not having any direction in your life.
For example, if you want to “be happy”, define what happines means to you, and descompose that happiness in every aspect of your life so you will be able to make decisions in the low level that will lead you to your definition of “happiness”.
2. Decision variables
Once we know what we want to achieve at the "general" level, we can begin to decide what actions brings us closer to our general objectives. Everyone must find out for themselves what it is that brings them closer to these goals. It may be to improve at work, you may decide to start a career or it may be to buy a new car, it’s your life so it’s your decision.
Here you have to have a list of that variables or desired situations bring you closer to the goal.
3. Impact evaluation
Now you have your general objectives and you have the actions, it’s time to priorize!
On every thing on the list, you have to decide which action will lead you to the goal faster. Make that list, be brave.
4. Deciding the objective
Here is where finally we decide what we want to do, in order to accomplish with the high-level objetives. If you’ve done the previous steps, I have nothing to say here, so you will find the right objective for yourself.
Good luck friend, the road is full of obstacles.