Brainstorming Your Personal Goals
Brainstorming isn’t about generating haphazard ideas; it’s about developing a list of actionable items to achieve our goals.
Preamble
Last week we introduced the concept of personal goals. Personal goals are the fun things we want to do with our life. We discussed that some people “work to live”, and others “live to work”. As I’ve been pondering this question of personal goals, I’ve come to the conclusion that not everyone may consider the need to set them so I thought I might take a few minutes to set up the purpose of today’s post.
It sort of was that way with me. When I first started this journey of defining my life plan in my early 20s (over 40 years ago!) I actually started out with educational goals. The reason was that I was married, working in the US Air Force and going back to school in the evening. Over the seven-year period I was in school in the evenings, I attended at various times, either part-time, full-time, or more than full-time.
“Well, Dave,” you say, “How can someone attend college more than full-time, especially when working full-time?” Here’s how that worked for me. In higher education speak, part-time is typically less than 12 credit hours a semester. I did that for most of my time while earning my college degrees. You may remember that I have five college degrees: Three associate's degrees, one bachelor's degree, and one master’s degree. At one point, as I neared completion of my bachelor’s degree, the Air Force had a program that allowed me to attend school full-time without working every day. This was an excellent program, although I only did it for about a semester or so. Then, back at work and working on my master’s degree, I was actually at one point attending more than full-time. At the graduate level, nine credit hours is considered full-time. I did this because the classes that I needed were offered during that semester, and I did not want to miss them. Remember that I was enlisted, and I could see the end of my enlistment on the horizon, and I did not want to leave the Air Force without completing my degree. Because I got out four months early through a special early-out program I did not know about at the time, that decision was that much wiser. Man, that was a hard seven years, and what I did to ease the load was use my vacation (leave in military speak) to do some of the work when I had challenging loads.
Ok, all of that to say that my first real use of setting and accomplishing goals was to map out completing my formal education. I did this on a piece of poster board hung on a wall, and I would mark each class off as I completed it. If you want to know a feeling of accomplishment, start ticking these off and watch the end appear. While doing this, I realized this was a good method to use for my career, so I started setting career goals. Then financial, and finally I added personal goals and rolled them all up into a lifetime plan.
So, what I’ve done with the Afterburner Success Course and my book is take those years of learning and present them to you in a very succinct and logical manner. You’re welcome!
Introduction
So that’s how personal goals came about, because after I figured out that after all the work I had to do to get ahead, I figured, why not map out the things I really want to do? Things that are fun and enjoyable.
And that brings us up to figuring out what we want to do in our lives for fun. Last week, we considered what personal goals may be and started to talk about the cost of various personal goals and how what we do for fun can and will cause us to consider what our financial goals need to be. For example, if we want a second home, a big cabin cruiser for the intercoastal of Florida, it will take a lot more money than if we like to garden or play bridge with our friends. I think this makes sense to us.
For Diane and me, our big-ticket personal goals were to have a nice home and to experience world travel on a regular basis. Remember, at one point, I wanted a Corvette, but that desire dissipated over the years. These things happen sometimes.
Here is a critical aspect about personal goals, and I want to be sure I make the point:
It’s OK to drop things you want to do or have because your desires change. What you never, ever want to do is have to drop things you want to do in life
because you cannot afford them, or you waited so long that you are no longer able to do them.
That’s about as plain as I can say it, make the point, and still be nice. You understand what I’m saying here, right? Because if you don’t plan for the things you want to do in life, you may find yourself in that winter season of life with regret for things you were not able to do.
As with most things in life, there is a balance among the various aspects of our lives that we strive to achieve. Balance between work and fun, spending money today versus saving for retirement. And so today, using the brainstorming technique, we are going to define all those fun things in life we want to do.
Brainstorming personal goals
If you’ve been with me for this entire journey through the course, you will remember brainstorming financial and professional goals. Brainstorming is typically a group technique, but we can (because it’s just you anyway) also use it individually by just opening our minds and letting the thoughts flow freely. Some of the advantages of brainstorming are that it can uncover hidden ideas we might not have thought about in normal times, it helps us get all of our thoughts down in one place at one time, and we can use it for not just the here and now, but for everything we want to do in our entire life!
So, let’s start. Get out a clean sheet of paper and a pen or pencil. I would prefer you not use an electronic device. There’s just something about writing these things down, like taking notes, that just seems to resonate and make them personal. OK, so our plan is to take about three minutes and just as fast as you can, write down every conceivable personal goal you might have based upon what we have discussed up to now and any of your lifetime dreams you have been harboring up to this point.
Ready? Go!
Just write each and every idea down. Don’t try to figure them out or think they are too big or outlandish. Write everything down.
When you have finished, stop and take a look at them. Then, go about your business and ponder them over a few days, especially as you sleep on them. Consider discussing with a trusted person, such as your spouse. Oh, and one of the things we talk about during this goal-setting process is including your spouse when you can. You likely will have somewhat different things you want to do, and that’s OK. Remember there will be some things you want to do that he or she won’t and the same with your spouse. Then there are the big things you want to do together, such as buying a nice home or traveling. I can tell you from personal experience that once your kids grow up and you retire, you lose a lot of social contacts that developed around your kids’ activities and work relationships. That’s another good reason to build relationships throughout your life. There are a lot of lonely people in the world, so we must be sure to build relationships and nurture them and I’m guessing that number is higher for older people, especially if they are widowed. Interestingly, the statistic in the US for loneliness is that about 33% of the population experiences loneliness in each week. Check out the article in Note 1 to learn more.
We’re going to stop for now. If you have more things you think of as time goes by, go ahead and add them to your list. DO NOT take anything off the list! Each item will be prioritized in the coming sessions, and at that time some will naturally fall out or be placed in a low-priority status. What we really don’t want to do is conclude that you can’t do something without fully going through the complete process. That could cause regret when you get older and we don’t want that.
That’s all for this week!
Personal Goals are Fun Things We Want to Do
Afterburner Success Partners
http://absuccesspartners.com/
What’s in it for me?
If you want to get ahead in life, if you want to achieve your dreams and live your best life, you must take meaningful, deliberate action that follows a proven path. Getting ahead in business and your career is about learning what to do and then doing it over time.
Call to Action
Just. Do. Something. Make a decision on what you want or need to do, define the path, and get after it. Do it today.
Recommended Resources
See notes below for either of my books.
Up Next
The personal goals priority matrix.
Notes
Please note that as an Amazon Affiliate, I may earn a small commission on the sale of any of these recommended resources.
New APA Poll: One in Three Americans Feels Lonely Every Week; American Psychiatric Association: https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/new-apa-poll-one-in-three-americans-feels-lonely-e
Achieve Your Dreams: A Complete Guide to Live Your Best Life, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/3IxEFgy
Everyday Cooking for Everyday People Like Us, by David Giustozzi: https://amzn.to/437OhVQ