A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your health, your children, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. “The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else–the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal. “Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.

The moral of this parable is a clear one. First fill your life with the important stuff, the golf balls. Then add stuff that supports the golf balls, the pebbles. You’re allowed to add more filling, and finish it off with a beer. The problem is that in life we don’t start with an empty jar.

Identifying your balls

In the search for a purposeful and passionate life you start to look for the important things. You take a good look at your life (the jar) and identify a couple of them. Some are real clear, some are only barely visible. There are all kinds of pebbles blocking your view. And then there’s that strange mud that smells of beer…

Then with some introspection you (re)discover some things that are definitely not in the jar. Forgotten passions, denied passions and such. You get yourself some golf balls and write those things on there. Proud of the new finds you look at the jar, only to find that there’s no room for those new balls.

There you are, looking at a jar filled to the rim and three golf balls in your hand that you want to put in there too. Energized by the find, discouraged by the result.

Clearing away the mud

To get more space for those balls, we need to clear some mud first. Now that sounds pretty easy from a jar perspective, but how do you go about that in real life?

Actually there’s a lot that’s been written about it already. Leo Babauta of Zen Habits wrote about it a lot, browse his articles on simplicity and you’ll find many tips on clearing away the sand and maybe some pebbles. Clay Collins of The Growing Life wrote a great post about clearing away pebbles and clearing away the sand. You’ll find many tips on these excellent blogs, there’s no need for me to repeat them here.

The only thing I’ll repeat here is the concept of baselining Clay Collins talks about:

The process of baselining involves writing down everything you don’t have to have, be, or do, to live a happy and fulfilled life.

This is the quintessence of simplifying. Eliminating everything that does not serve you to be happy or fulfilled. Away with the clutter, away with bullshit, away with the wants and needs instigated in you by marketers. This is similar to taking out the pebbles in our parable.

Take some time to sit down and write a list of things that are in your life, but are not necessary for a happy and fulfilling life. You might get a handful straight away, and then go blank. Just contemplate on ti for some more time, and things will come up. Put the list up on the wall of the toilet, the mirror in the bathroom, or any place you get to see it often. Over the course of days, you will encounter situations that can go on the list too. This exercise alone is already changing your mindset, and you will get inspired to actually start eliminating stuff from your life.

This is the approach I have taken (and I’m far from done). There’s so much stuff left, so much things to eliminate. And the beautiful result is that there’s so much more time to spend on the important things. And as a bonus you might just discover one of the hidden golf balls in the middle of the jar.

Fear of the empty jar

Don’t worry about this one. There will never be an empty jar, there will always be a nice set of golf balls in there. Being conscious on this one will lead to a clear jar with the golf balls you choose, supported by the pebbles you need to support those golf balls.

In the parable the professor said: “The golf balls are the important things–your family, your health, your children, your friends, your favorite passions–things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.”

If you add a handful of pebbles, that’s full enough for me. Scratch the rest (I’ll have the beer though). How about you?

Photos by memekode, Sroown and frumbert

I’ll admit it, I’m a stats junkie. I like to track progress, see numbers, have charts on whatever it is I’m trying to accomplish. I share my blog stats with you on a weekly basis in the weekly reviews.

I track my goals and habits on a daily basis too. For this I use Joe’s Goals, a simple web app designed to do just that. In this post I’m going to share with you how I use Joe’s Goals.

Setting up an account

This is a breeze! No annoying questions, just an email address, a nickname and a password and you’re all setup.

Configuring your goals and habits

Once you setup your account, you can start configuring your goals and habits. There are two types of entries that you can make, Goal or Logbook. Goals have scores, Logbooks are meant for comments.

I use both types. Goals are meant for checking off on habits I have completed successfully for the day or for checking of on activities that lead me closer to accomplishing my goals. The Logbook-type I use for planning purposes and for making notes on things I have done. And I use them in combination too, more on that later.

As you can see in the images, the setup screens for an entries are pretty straightforward. They have a nice set of options, but nothing too fancy.

• Goal name
  Like it says, this is where the name goes. Choose any name you like, you don’t have to worry about sorting, because you can change the sort order later.
• Tags
  You can put tags in here. I don’t use this feature.
• Weight - goal only
  You can give a score to the checks you put in this goal. Values range from 1 to 10. This is something I use to give relative weight to my goals and habits.
• Type - goal only
  You can choose whether you want the goal to be positive and earning you points, or negative making you lose points. All my goals are positive, because I want to reward myself for doing something I like, not punish myself.
• Target Days
  Use this feature to mark on what days you want the goal to be active. My weekly review habit for instance is only active on Sundays.
• Display Stats - goal only
  Here you can select what stats you want to see in the overview screen.
• Notes
  And finally, this is where you put whatever it is you feel you need to write down. This does not show in the overview screen.

Sorting your goals

Goals and habits are initially ordered in the order you create them. But fear not as it’s easy to sort them later on, when you discover one you forgot. Just click in the upper right hand corner on the link to “sort goals”. There you can sort them by Alphabetically, by Goal Type or Weight.

If you’re like me, you want neither of those orders. For people like us, you can create a custom sorting order by simply rearranging the goals in the list. Scroll down and click on the “Save Custom Sort Order” button in the bottom.

The overview screen

When you trusted all your goals, habits and other thoughts to the program, you get a nice overview of all your entries in a table. The entries are listed on the left, and you get a week’s worth of spaces to mark your progress.

The default view places the current date as the last date in the table. But using the arrow in the top right hand corner, you scroll forward into the near future. By clicking the calender icon, you can choose a date further away.

Some of my tricks

• Injecting Planning: This feature, combined with the Logbook item, is a great way to inject some planning into the table. I use this for my renovation project as you can see. There’s not an awful lot of room for text, so you can’t be too verbose. By putting the Logbook for actuals (a) right below the planning (p) I can see instantly how much of my plan got executed (and consequently whether I need to adjust my planning).
• Divide into sections: Another trick I use is to divide my table into sections, by inserting a Logbook item with no active days. This results in a blue bar across the table. Make sure to give it a clickable title though (like the dashes I used). I have one goal dangling on the bottom of the table, where I brilliantly used the spacebar to give it an unclickable name. I still need to send a mail to ‘Joe’ to get that one removed from the database.
• Declining points for ‘old’ habit changes: As you can see I used the weight function a lot. For the habits section, I more or less have a system for that. The habits that I have been doing for quite a while now get a lower score than the ones that I just started. But some of them are multi-clickable, like the “Drink water” habit. Every glass of water results in a checkmark.
• Extra credit for perfect days: When I have a perfect day with all my habits, I allow myself to check the main habits goal as well, scoring me an additional 10 points. This is one I came up with fairly recently, so I have yet to get the pleasure of putting in a checkmark there!

Now get started!

There are more features to be discovered in Joe’s Goals, and I could write a lot more about it. The truth is that I don’t use the rest of the features, so I’m not going to elaborate on them.

The biggest benefit of using Joe’s Goals is the fact that you’re inclined to check in daily, to score your progress. Doing this on a daily basis will help you build your goals and habit changes into your daily routine, increasing the likelihood of success.

The important thing is to get started. So surf on over to Joe’s Goals and start tracking your progress. Use my tips if they suit you, or come up with your own hacks. But ultimately it’s not about the hacks or the tracking software, it’s about getting serious about change and progress. But this sure is a nifty tool to enable you to succeed.

Oh…and in case you’re worried about forgetting to check-in on a regular basis: you will get an e-mail reminder (after a configurable number of days) to get your butt back to the site and hold yourself accountable!

Last weekend I have accomplished one of my big goals. Since last Sunday I am a certified Practitioner in Neuro Linguistic Programming. Or to quote the certificate:

Lodewijk van den Broek has successfully completed the course of training in Neuro-Linguistic Programming and has demonstrated competence in the presuppositions, skills and techniques of Neuro-Linguistic Programming at the level of NLP Practitioner.

Cool huh? I think so! However this article is not about me becoming certified, but about celebrating when you achieve a goal. And taking this as an example is a way to celebrate for me

Goal accomplished?

Accomplishing goals is one of the most gratifying experiences in the goal setting process. It is what all activities and all energy are focused upon: getting the desired result. After all this time working on this goal, alone or in a team, and after overcoming all kinds of unexpected obstacles it has at last produced result. Success!

But…what to do now?

All of a sudden there’s this gaping void of a missing purpose, a loss of direction. This is a natural response, and a lot of people start by setting new goals again. For them the void is so dominant and is perceived as a loss, rather than a gain. So they react by filling the void with new goals.

This is a reaction by adrenaline junkies who have become addicted to the path. It’s like climbing a mountain only to run down again after touching the summit, because the next mountain needs to be climbed.

They have lost their appreciation of a goal accomplished, of the victory of achieving the end-result. It’s great to enjoy the path, but goal setting is about the path and the end-result.

So celebrate the result!

So what do you do when you reached your desired end-result? You celebrate! You won! Go dance your victory dance, sing your song of victory, send out a press release, scream from the top of your lungs, tell everybody around you, buy yourself a gift, have a piece of chocolate cake, take a glass of 18-year old whiskey, get a massage, throw a party…get it?

Achieving success is something to celebrate! The gaping void is not a void; it’s a space to celebrate and to contemplate. But first of all to celebrate!

You just climbed a mountain, now sit down on the summit and enjoy the view. Be proud of being there; look back on the path towards the summit; laugh with the people that climbed with you about the mistakes you made and how you overcame them; thank them for their support along the way.

Be proud!

Celebration is to release the energy that built up along the way, commonly known as stress or strain. Celebrating provides an outlet for that energy and it clears the mind. You will find that the void isn’t a void anymore after the celebration. It’s an open space that you can fill creatively again.

And while enjoying the success and the celebration, small fragments of new goals start to appear. New ideas start to pop up in your mind, not because you need the rush of the path, but because there’s room to create new goals.

Now take the time to realign to your life goals or company goals if you’re in a corporate environment. Make a conscious decision on what you want to achieve next.

I’m not there yet…still celebrating a goal accomplished

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 3: Not Quantifying Enough

Goals represent things that you want to achieve. But not everything is quantitative, or expressed in numbers if you will. There are qualitative goals too, and those are usually about changing habits.

The problem with these goals is that you start enthusiastically, but never really know when it’s finished. Some habits changes have it built in, ‘quit smoking’ for instance is a habit change with a very measurable end result. But there are lots of other habit changes that don’t necessarily have a defined end result. You need to define when the habit change is a success.

Other habit changes are more of a means to a goal. Why do you want to change that habit? What is it that you want to achieve exactly? Do you just want to run twice a week? Or do you want to be able to run a marathon twice a year? If it’s the latter, state that as the goal. The habit change is only a way to get there (and an incomplete one too!).

Example: Qualitative habit changes
The goals:

1. Starting August 2007 I change my sleeping pattern to rising early, so I can spend more quality time with my family
2. Starting October 2007 I actively call, mail or see friends or family on at least four days a week.
3. Starting September 2007 I review my mission, guidelines and goals on a weekly basis
4. Starting September 2007 I workout five times a week, alternating running and weight lifting

The problem:
These goals have no end, because they lack a measurable end result, a criterion to define success. They start at a point in time, but when can I say: OK, this is a success!

Goal 1 was a major habit change, that I blogged about in the Early Bird Challenge. It was a success, and still is, but how did I define this? For this particular goal, I wanted to change to rising early (4:30 am) during August. I ended up at 5:00 am, and have sustained it pretty much ever since. But I never quantified when the sustained habit change was a real success? I also wanted to spend more quality time (oops: self-sabotage) with my family. But I did not quantify it.

As far as goal 2, 3 and 4 are concerned: when is it a success? After a week? Two weeks? Ten? A year?

Goal 2: What is the result I want to achieve with that habit change? Do I want it just to do it, or is there something else? Obviously I don’t want to stalk and harass my family and friends to meet my goal.

Something similar for the workouts. What defines a workout? Is picking up my 10 kilo son also lifting weights? Is working on home renovation a workout? And what do I want to achieve anyway? The running obviously is a means towards running half a marathon next year. But lifting weights?

The solution:
These goals need rephrasing or redefining. First I ask myself the question: What do I want to achieve with this? Then redefine the goal to a measurable goal.

Goal 1: I wanted to achieve that I’m awake and energetic when my family is awake. To do this, I needed to change my sleeping pattern. Change is successful after a sustained period of at least 5 out of 7 days for 10 weeks.

Goal 2: I want to achieve that I have an active social life. Being a father, working, blogging and pursuing goals can consume loads of time, and I don’t want to forget my friends and family. Goal was already rephrased in a weekly review to “Be in contact with…”. Successful if sustained for 10 weeks.

Goal 3: I want to pro-actively create my own reality. I don’t know how to measure that, so there’s no change to formulation. Successful if sustained for 10 weeks.

Goal 4: I want to achieve an athletic body with plenty of stamina. Stamina is measured by my ability to run half a marathon (and survive). Athletic body is measured by the amount of muscle mass (needs to increase) and fat percentage (needs to be reduced). For the latter two I need to do more research on exact figures.

Still not very easy to do, I must admit. But they have improved, and I can measure progress.

Goal Setting Rules

So what are the lessons here?

1. If there’s nothing to measure, you’re not done formulating yet
2. Habit changes are a means to an end, not goals by themselves

This still is a difficult part of goal setting. I’m not sure whether I’ve seen this one through all the way.

I’ll learn as I go along, I guess. I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.

Tomorrow: Mistake 4: Moving Targets

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