Setting goals

The result is what matters, not how it's achieved (unless, of course, the
process of achieving is itself a series of results).

- Iain M. Banks
Player of Games

I have never been one to be organized. I have forgotten things my whole life. If I didn't forget I often put off. And subsequently I sit at 31 years old with not a lot accomplished. I have a wonderful life don’t get me wrong. But I have accomplished almost nothing measurable as far as goals. It is not a lack of desire but a lack of goals. I have said “Someday I will X” but it never really meant anything. One of the only things I every promised myself was to be a dad. I have achieved that but not by setting a goal. It literally fell into my lap.

So why don’t I have goals. I have a wild imagination, you would think I would have long list of goals. But I had none. You see I used the word had. I learned something from a very wise man. “Goals are never unreasonable”. When you realize this, and you also realize you thought your goals where unreasonable because ‘nothing that good will ever happen to me’. It has become clear nothing ever “happens” to you. You have to make things happen to you.

Well I have set a goal. It is a big one. It is huge. But it is being slowly broken into smaller goals and further still into individual tasks. You need ten years to become a master at anything if you put in the effort. And that will be my final test. Can I put in the effort? If I can I will have achieved a life goal. If I can’t at least I will have achieved something and that is a better personal understanding.