My intention for this journal is that, on most days, I will only write one entry, but it's important, I feel, to start these things off with a bang. Also: it would probably help if I explained the actual function and method of this thing, with respect to my thesis.
In this journal, I will track and write about my pursuit of various life goals, ranging from my fitness objectives, to travel, to programming, to the arts, etc. While I will maintain a formal listing of every last thing I'm trying to pursue, daily posts will focus only on those goals which I worked on that particular day. The exception to this will be Sundays, wherein I review the preceding week overall, evaluate my approach to each goal and how it can be improved, and decide whether or not my life has room for another undertaking and what it will be.
Now, that, of course, raises some questions, but shut up. No. Those questions are perfectly valid. The first one I had of myself was 'how do you measure progress?' Can I tell you something about that question? It's actually really hard.
See, there are some goals that are pretty easy to measure, because they can be quantified in some purely objective fashion. Writing 4,000 words in a day is very clearly closer to the goal of 5,000 words in a day than 3,000 is. Sprinting 50 meters in 7 seconds is decidedly better than doing the same in 8 seconds. On the other hand, how do you measure the quality of music? What value does selling a painting have towards the goal of being a good painter? Even in the case of the 5,000 words, how do you judge--in a way that you can make an account of--if those words are well-written, standard, or slop?
There's one other complication--what about long-term goals that have prerequisites to them? For example, if one has a goal of being able to do 5 planche pushups, but you can't yet even think about doing 1 (like me), you have to work your way up through various other motions and holds, and all your progress on, say, the Frog Stand, will still not translate into a number value for planche pushups.
After thinking it over, the answer I arrived at is to break goals up into three classes: lifetime, measurable and intermediary. Lifetime goals are those big, overarching pursuits that you can never really 'complete,' you can always strive for more; the goal of 'learning photography' is in this category. Measurable goals are those that have an easily identifiable quantitative component, and can therefore be completed by reaching the number in question; 5 planche pushups would be this sort of goal. Intermediary goals are those which are necessary to achieve further, more ambitious goals and serve as a way of checking up on progress even if one can't really scratch the surface of that later goal yet.
These classes are far from strict, mind you. Many intermediary goals are also measurable goals, (3,000 words per day before 5,000) but some also have a lifetime component (learning to play guitar before recording an album). Some major measurable goals exist as intermediaries towards my particular interpretation of a lifetime goal--for example, when I say I want to learn Japanese, there will always be more I can learn or practice, but I want to have a working vocabulary of, say, 3,000 words, before I'd be willing to say I knew it well enough to use, even though there's no rigid standard that says I have to. Still other goals mix and meld together and . . .
You know what? Just wait for the Big Fat List of Goals, coming soon to a motivational journal near you!
Still learning,
~L
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