Goal Setting Mistakes: 2. Colliding Deadlines

This month I learned some goal setting lessons…the hard way! I’ve been working with setting goals and blogging about it for a couple of months now. And I made some mistakes. Preventable mistakes? Maybe, but honest mistakes anyway. This is a series of posts about those mistakes.

Mistake 2: Colliding deadlines

As a deadline comes close, anxiety rises. Even when you’re not procrastinating, the intensity of the work you need to do to get the job done rises as the deadline comes closer.

My experience is that I can get into a state of flow when I work on meeting a deadline. But single tasking and focusing are essential when you want to reach that flow-state. Having several goals with the same (self-imposed!) deadline is a very effective way of preventing that flow-state. I can tell you that! Now add a busy holiday season with a lot of social activity going on, and you’re toast.

Example: 4 goals, 1 deadline, holiday season
The goals:

1. By December 2007 the renovation of the 2nd floor of our house is finished and the office is ready for use
2. By December 2007 the garden in the front and back have been redone and are safe for children
3. By December 2007 I am a certified NLP Practitioner
4. By December 2007 I have over 2500 RSS subscribers on my blog

The problem:
I have 4 goals to be finished in December.

December!! What was I thinking?

Early December we have the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas, followed by Christmas and to top it off there’s New Year’s Eve! December is packed with social activities and other fun stuff to do.

This is a disaster waiting to happen. Imagine the choice: Go for the goals and totally ignore family and friends during the family month. Or participate in all the activities with family and friends, but with goals that are about to fail on your mind all the time? Neither is a lot of fun, I can tell you that.

The solution:
The solution to mistake 1 was already to schedule out goal 1 (renovation of 2nd floor).

I also decided to keep the goal 4 (2500 subscribers) like it is.

Goal 3 has an imposed deadline, the final test for the NLP Practitioner certification is on December 16. So that’s one’s staying as well.

And goal 2, well…that one will reappear in another mistake and will resolve then. So stay tuned.

Goal Setting Rules

So what are the lessons here?

1. Distribute deadlines whenever possible
2. Take non-goal related activities into account

Again no rocket science. But hey, I was stupid enough to fall for them, and I consider myself a smart person

Tomorrow: Mistake 3: Not Quantifying Enough