"Your Best Year Ever?" Part 1

I will start with a confession.  I missed my goal. I ended 2013 eight-tenths of a pound short of my weight goal.  For 365 days I worked toward a specific goal which I had set on January 1, 2013.  On December 31, 2013, I got on the scale and saw the bad news. I failed.  So, I began to rationalize. “Well, Bill, you lost a lot of weight that you otherwise would not have lost.” “Yes, but I failed, and why? Because in the final days of December I decided it was worth more to me to share in the holiday food and beverages with friends and family.”  “So, what was the problem, Bill? A lack of will-power?” “No, stop accusing me of that! It was a value judgment and I can accept having missed the goal for a good reason.”  “Well, William,” (that’s always what I call myself when I am upset with me) “in 2014 why don’t you have your annual goal end on Dec. 15, before the friends and family parties start?” “Great idea, Bill, I will do it!”

And that, my friends is an example of rational “goal-factoring” which is taught by the Center for Applied Rationality. (WSJ, 12.31.13)  Angela Chen writes a great article about the way scientists and software programmers are taught to develop achievable goals.  An irrational goal: saying you are getting up at 5:30 a.m. every day to exercise when you are not a “morning person.” You won’t do it and you know you won’t do it.  In setting your goal, imagine it is six months hence. How surprised are you if you did not reach your goal. If you are not surprised at imagining that you stopped getting up at 5:30 a.m. after two weeks, then it is a dumb goal to begin with.  Goal-factoring is, really, a take-off, I think, of the SMART goal-setting approach (setting goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.) (Wikipedia, “SMART Criteria”).

And what got me thinking about all of this, besides my bad encounter with the mal-functioning scale on Dec. 31, was a comment made to me by “coach” who I turn to for help in learning to lead our congregation of the faithful. He challenged me to ask, “What would it take to make 2014 your church’s best year ever?”  I am thinking through that question. I am going to ask lots of people that question this month, and by February 1 I am going to have an answer.

What would need to happen for 2014 to be the best year ever for you personally?  For your family, your work, your relationship with God?  Do you want it to happen?