Goal Setting Revisited

A few years ago, I picked up a book. It's one that has been life-changing for me on many levels. It's called The Magic Lamp: Goal Setting for People Who Hate Setting Goals. Buy this book. Read it and do the exercises - it's really about helping you identify what you really want to make come true in your life.


The title is a bit misleading - as if there is some special gadget out there for helping with setting goals. There isn't. Our lives and what we accomplish, or don't accomplish is about choice making, really, and following through on those choices daily over time. What gets in the way for some of us is focusing and choosing what we want to do. What I particularly like about this book is how the dry dusty "goal setting" framework gets reworked into "making my wishes come true." Because if we all saw goals like that - as making our wishes come true - then we would be more focused on working on them.

Sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking we don't have time. We have the time. Sometimes we choose not to make our wishes come true because we'd rather watch NCIS or The Little Shop of Horrors. Or more likely for me, surf the web and find 10 Questions to Ask to Help in Decluttering. Or we think our wishes will only come true if we can work on them full time. Not so. The author says:

Spare time wishing may not feel like the ideal arrangement. It may not get you where you want to go as fast as you want to get there, but it will get you there faster than going broke (i. e. quitting your job). And it really works. As a young man, Albert Einstein worked as a patent clerk. In his spare time, he invented the Theory of Relativity. Anything is possible if you give it enough time."

Wishes can come true at any age. It's important to have dreams and goals, and then to work to make them come true. They come in all sizes, too. In a couple of weeks one of my wishes is going to come true. It's something I dreamed back in 2007. It's not the theory of relativity, but I'm happy to see this happening.