In previous posts I wrote that I would be launching my new goal setting course: ‘Goal Setting 101’ soon.  I seem to have been saying that for months!  In fact my original target completion date was way back in September 2019.  In this article I want to discuss this delay in achieving my goal and see what can be learned in the context of setting and achieving any goal.

Why is it taking me so long?

1. An unexpected work opportunity arose at the end of September and I am now much busier than planned and my time is taken up with the new work.
2. The course is taking much longer than I expected with much more work and upskilling involved than I anticipated.

Let’s look at the above two reasons for the delay in launching the course. The first reason is acceptable because we have to be flexible and be able to take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. This new work opportunity was too good for me to say no to and I decided to jump at it. One of the dangers of goal setting is tunnel vision where we are so focused on the goal that we don’t see other opportunities or we are so inflexible that we cannot take advantage of them.

Planning fallacy

The second reason for the delay in launching my new goal setting course is related to my old nemesis the planning fallacy which I have written about before. We become over-optimistic about the effort and time needed to complete a goal. In other words there was far more work than I anticipated in researching and creating the course and the goal turned out to be much harder and longer than planned. In addition to the work involved I am also having to learn new skills along the way on course creation which to me is not a drag but a real bonus and I am enjoying learning as I create. However the upskilling involved adds to the time involved in course creation.

Input goals

Since last October I have been plugging away at course creation at the rate of about 30 minutes to 1 hour per day. This was my input goal to just focus on small daily progress and forget about the output of finishing the course. I am not sure exactly when I will be finished the goal setting course but I am getting nearer now and the daily progress has built up over the months. I expect to finish the course in the coming weeks.

There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time.

Desmond Tutu

Just keep going and enjoy the journey

One of the most important things of all in working towards any goal is to start from where you are now and just keep going. Keep making daily progress. If you miss a day here or there along the way that is OK. Start again today and keep going. We can all fail to reach deadlines we set for ourselves like I failed to complete my new course last September. So what! Start again and just keep going. You can achieve anything you want bit by bit and remember to enjoy the journey and learn lots along the way. Sometimes we focus so much on the end result that we forget to enjoy the journey to achieving our goal. Remember the journey is your life!

Covid-19 & Creativity

What better time now during a Covid-19 enforced lock-down to actually complete my goal setting course!  It’s a great time to get stuff like this done.  Although I recognise it is not easy for everyone with children confined to home and potentially a lot of distractions. Even spending half an hour a day on your key goal can make a huge difference over time. Maybe you always wanted to write book, start a podcast, create a course, learn a language, learn to play a musical instrument or start a blog etc. What is that big thing for you? My question now to you is what can you spend 30 minutes a day working on? In a year’s time you will be happy you started today!

Best wishes and keep safe,

Tom

Update July 2020 – the course is now live and online!! Job done – or not quite…I have continued to make updated and improvements since I launched the course. Check out the course on Udemy here.