Sometimes it can be powerful to ask ourselves the tough question of ‘have we been wrong about this?’ Whether it’s about a decision that we’ve made in the past or one we keep on making, it can be powerful to ask the boldest of questions of self reflection. Doing so, though, in a way that doesn’t lead us to shame, guilt or regret is somewhat of an art. Being objective doesn’t come as easy to some as it does to others because the notion of ‘failure’ can have such a powerful and lasting impact. This notion of ‘failure’ – either considering our actions or even ourselves in our entirety as either living up to a standard or falling short – often does more harm than good and as a result the management of this concept is emerging as a secret weapon in helping people do things of significant.
Recent reflection on how psychologists and behavioural experts have been teaching people to set goals has seen the body of experts asking themselves the same hard question I posed above. We have long been teaching people to set goals by being specific, making sure we have ways to measure our success and committing to tasks and objectives that we believe can achieve within given timeframes. Reflection on this process has revealed that, by only considering these components, we have perhaps missed out on the extra complexity involved in helping people to do important things. Importantly, it seems as though we have made a complex process more complex by trying to create a framework when what we really needed to do was to make sure that people were focused on what was important to them, namely ‘do I want this outcome’ and ‘how do I know if I’m making progress’?
And it’s the idea of knowing whether you’ve made progress that’s vitally important. Sometimes progress can be slow, sometimes it’s staggered, but you don’t know unless you have a clear idea of how you can measure it. Progress, not perfection – that’s the mantra that’s almost custom made for 2021. And if you don’t know where to start, how to measure your progress or even whether your goals are possible, it’s important to not beat-around-the-bush and ask for help. Asking for help takes your intentions out of your head and into the world where our dreams and intentions shift towards the realisation of goals.