When we set goals that are too vague, it becomes impossible to fail.
Setting a goal of “I want to have a productive day” is completely undefined. I have failed to state clearly what a productive day would mean to me and as such, except I really screw up the day, I can’t really say I didn’t achieve my goal at the end of the day.
Setting a goal of “I want to make progress on project X today by performing tasks y and z” is a much better statement, well defined. At the end of the day, if y and z remains undone…. The goal is clearly not achieved.
When setting a goal for our companies, we ought to follow in like manner. If its too vague, nobody will know exactly what we are gunning for and nobody can really execute a goal that has not been properly defined and distilled into deliverables and “tangibles”.
Setting a goal of “I want to change the world” is as meaningless as it sounds. All goals have to be measurable in a way.
