Good Morning,
Having goals is good. Making new goals when old ones are achieved or are no longer relevant is even better.
When we give up on a goal, though, it knocks against our ego.
Depending on the goal we give up on, it can bring on depression or worse.
I remember the goals I had to scratch off my list when I was in the hospital with my two broken legs back in 1995. It was a tough time of readjusting my life. Beyond changing goals when our lives change are the times we have to give up on goals which were just too pie in the sky to ever reach.
Back in another company we had a weight loss challenge for all the staff to participate in. We put in what we wanted to lose, during the time of the competition, and then judged ourselves based on our weight-loss toward that goal. Instead of putting in a goal of 10 – 15 pounds over 2 months, I put in the total weight I wanted to lose, something like 50 pounds. In the time of the challenge, I did lose weight, but I never came close to my goal. It just wasn’t realistic.
Although it’s not something we can always avoid, we can reduce the times that we have to give up on goals by making better and more realistic goals.
Having a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) is fine, so long as you have the ambition, drive, skills and resources to get it. Sure it will be a push, and sure it will be painful as you and your team stretch to enter that new realm of performance.
There are, though, times when our goals are so audacious, they are simply impossible. Yes, I used the impossible word, and yes there times something is only impossible because no one did it yet.
There are also times when goals are so out there, like to train to run a 1 minute mile. Without bionics and cybernetics, it is not likely humans will be running 60 miles an hour any time soon. Maybe if I trained for that I could have lost 50 pounds in a month.
Yes it is outlandish, but sometimes we set ourselves up for failure, driven by ambition, to do things which just don’t make sense.
Allowing the passions of ambition to fuel our drive, we need to balance our goal setting with wisdom and practicality or else we set ourselves up for failure.
Ambition is good, so is passion. Although, like all things left to run wild, they can end up being joy killers in our lives as we clean up the messes we end up making.
The balanced approach allows us to be ambitious and yet keep an eye on practicality.
Something to consider.
Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.learnandgrowdaily.com
http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/ 
Click on the book to order: "Learn And Grow Daily!"
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