It's always been tempting to write a book about the stupid
things people say and the stupider things people believe.
Here's one of my favorites...
"A goal is a dream with a deadline."
Nonsense.
Sort of like when the City says, "...yes, this project is
going to be done by Johnson Corporation and will be
completed by Jun 15, 2009.."
And people actually believe that.
Everyone does.
"Oh, yeah but don't worry, it will be done by June 15, next year."
Obviously people who believe in 'The Secret', and not people
who pay attention to anything in front of their eyes...
But hey, that "dream with a deadline," thing makes for good copy.
Sad Fact: ...once people figure that out, they sometimes become
disenchanted, frustrated, feel a sense of failure, and worse - they
feel inadequate. And there is no reason for any of this.
"Goal setting doesn't work."
"I have a perfect system that works every time and I failed. Only
I could fail at something that works every time."
I have to deprogram these people with far too much regularity....
KEYPOINT: If all you needed was a goal and a time stamp, life
would be sooooooooo breezy easy that we'd just "attract" everything
we wanted effortlessly into our driveway....
We know it doesn't work like that and it never will....
There are a lot of myths about goal setting.
And, there are a lot of goals that need to be set.
How do you know what kinds of goals to set and what will
actually be the most constructive system to achieve those goals?
I'm going to show you.
A dream with a deadline is most likely to remain a dream...or
become a nightmare...
A dream with a deadline is almost a guaranteed recipe for failure.
"We will balance the budget by 2012."
You could list thousands of them.
Dreams are important to having a great life, but when you start
attaching iron clad deadlines on them, you create a lot of problems.
Here's something I haven't put in the public before.....
I finished the final draft of The Psychology of Persuasion in February 1991,
right after Desert Storm.
I met that goal.
My next goal was to have it in print by January 1, 1993.
Had that been a dream with a deadline....it would have been dead.
...Psychology of Persuasion was published in May 1996.
It took five years to find a publisher. Five years.
Good "copy" doesn't necessarily make for a rewarding life...
or best selling books....
What does?
To find out what does work in goal setting, continue...
