How To Leverage More of What You Want
Have you ever decided to do something only to find later that it’s not working out?
If so, then it’s not necessarily your ultimate goal that’s the problem. It could just be that you need to stop how you’re doing it and try something else.
There are three things to remember about goals & achievement:
- Defining what you want is not just a “nice to have”. It’s essential.
- Your personal values help plan the route you take.
- There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Knowing what you want means you don’t get stuck with what you don’t want
Some people have asked me why I no longer have a facebook account.
In an earlier post I mentioned that I had outlined some personal and business social media objectives (or goals). Because I had done this to quite a level of detail, I was able to evaluate how the various social outlets I’m subscribed to were working in my favour.
Now’s a good time to point out the difference between goals and tactics. I had goals to achieve through using social media. But the way I go about it and the methods I use are tactics.
What I discovered with facebook is that it tries to be all things to everyone. For me, it’s doing so at the expense of what I want. Facebook puts it’s emphasis on “opt-out” of it’s various social elements. I prefer giving others, and being given the choice myself to opt in.
Can you think of a time where you didn’t define what you wanted from a situation and ended up wasting weeks, months, even years caught up in something you later realised wasn’t suitable?
Your personal values tell you whether or not a route is right for you
My “friends” on facebook include actual family & friends, colleagues, online friends, networkers and business contacts. And as facebook tries to be all things to everyone, therein lies the problem.
- My family & friends don’t want my business news.
- I don’t want my colleagues, business contacts and random strangers to click and dig their way into profiles of my family.
- I don’t like networkers spamming my family & friends with “friend requests”.
- I don’t like being tagged in photos.
- Unlike twitter where short is sweet, the facebook version of snippety, bite-sized friendship leaves a hole.
Facebook offers customisable privacy levels but they’re limited in scope. And I’ve grown tired of spending my spare time customising facebook privacy every time they implement a change.
The nicest and most satisfying way to reach your goal is by travelling on a road that fits with your personal values and aspirations. Facebook brushes the wrong way against many of my personal values.
What could you change to make one of your goals more pleasant to reach?
There’s more than one way to skin a cat
Just because you started in a particular direction, doesn’t mean you have to follow it religiously. Remember the difference between goals and tactics?
If there’s no commitment, promise or obligation on a certain path, then you can meet your goal in a way that feels more in tune with yourself.
If you do have commitments, it’s a good idea to track and understand if there’s a deeper source of discomfort. It’s an important question because throwing off one commitment because you’re too tired means it will probably come up again in a different form.
A lot of people find themselves in a seemingly never-ending situation because they had entered it without knowing what they wanted from it. That’s why defining your goals is so important. For a long time, I hated the word “goal” – it was too corporate mumbo-jumbo for me. But you don’t have to call it a goal. It’s something that you want and you can call this anything that does it justice.
As soon as you define what it is that you want – either on your own or with a personal coach – you suddenly discover that you do have options.
A different way of doing things exists in almost every situation. Your natural flexibility and curiosity will help you find it.
Having dipped a toe into social media, I’m finding it’s a whirlpool sucking me in.
