Episode 968: Do You Have Too Many Goals?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 968 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Dow Tippet: I'm , DowTippett author of seven daily choices. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.

[00:00:22] Having the ability to make the right choices every day is key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: and as you do that, filter through the goals and identify what things are, habit goals, what things are achievement goals, what things. A month or a week or a year to do. And what things can I knock out relatively quickly? And that way you end up with some goals at different scales, and then you can repeat this process as you accomplish one of these goals and knock it off the list.[00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. You'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you.

[00:01:24] Can impact the work

[00:01:26] and today's episode about developing your influence by stewarding your time. I talk with you about how it is possible. You can have too many goals. I share some techniques you can use to filter down to your most important goals. And I also share what you can do about setting goals at different scales.

[00:01:46] As we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show.

[00:02:05] Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/. How many goals are you really trying to accomplish right now? There's a really good chance. There's a really good possibility that you've actually got to. This happens to a lot of us when we're trying to be productive and get a lot done.

[00:02:29] And it's an understandable, easy to make mistake. We want to achieve everything that we can. We want to be the best that we can. And even I have told you to set goals and even set big, hairy, audacious goals, challenging ones. But the problem is that often what we end up doing is setting too many goals.

[00:02:51] And in basically that's the same as having none at all, because you end up frustrated and frazzled and feeling like you're [00:03:00] never making any progress on any of them. And the truth is the cure is really easy. Cut the list of goals down to something that's more manageable, but. We often feel like, we've got to have more goals, we've got to keep pushing ourselves and we push against that idea.

[00:03:23] The truth is the process that you can go through to begin to identify what are the goals that you really want to pay the most attention to is first to just do a brain. Sit down with a piece of paper or your computer, or turn your phone on to record and just talk out loud and start talking about all of the goals that you have, get them captured in some way.

[00:03:50] Don't worry about filtering them, just think about all of the things that you want to do regardless of the scale, regardless of the details, regardless of whether there's [00:04:00] something about. Building type activity or an achievement goal, something that you want to accomplish. And the truth is trying to begin to identify what are the little routine things that aren't really goals per se, but are just the, you need to get them done all the time, like the laundry and the bills and various habits like that.

[00:04:24] And what are actually the big goals that you really want to accomplish in some sort of sizable, timescale things like quitting smoking or writing a book. Or changing careers, things about maybe redoing relationships or strengthening relationships. These sorts of larger activities often have been floating around in your head nagging at you for weeks or months.

[00:04:53] And so capture them and get them down on paper and then begin to divide the [00:05:00] list and prioritize the list. Look at it and divide, what are personal and water professional goals. You should have some of each and then begin to look at what, which of these goals are the most important. What are the things that if I could only do one thing on this list, what are the things that I would most want to do?

[00:05:20] You can also group goals into small goals. Look for the small goals that you can knock out quickly and easily. And then you can also identify the goals that would have the biggest long-term impact, the ones that would change your life in a positive way, or change your career in a positive way, and then decide using these kind of three identifiers.

[00:05:46] What is the one top goal that you should achieve? What is the one thing that you want to get? And then if I could do one other [00:06:00] thing, what would it be? And if I could do one other thing, what would it be? And then begin to identify the timescale for these goals. Are they short-term goals? Are they long-term goals?

[00:06:12] Are they things that are going to take a long time to accomplish? And if so, begin to break them down into smaller components. What are the things I can do today that move me towards writing about. Cause saying, write a book as a goal is all well and good. But if you don't start thinking about what are the activities that make up writing a book you're never going to get started.

[00:06:35] And as you do that, filter through the goals and identify what things are, habit goals, what things are achievement goals, what things require a month or a week or a year to do, and what things can I knock out relatively quick? And that way you end up with some goals at different scales, and then you can repeat this process as you accomplish one of these goals and knock it off the list.

[00:06:59] [00:07:00] What's the next thing that moves into the most important slot. And what's the thing after that, you usually only want to have three to five goals for the year. Three to five for quarter three to five for a month and three to five for any week or day. And that way you can begin to scale these goals and build them up and connect them to each other.

[00:07:24] So that over a year, you will accomplish huge things. The truth is way too often. We way overestimate what we can get done in a day, but we way underestimate what we can get done in a year. And by setting this framework and identifying what goals fall at different scales, what goals are really the most important by getting them down on paper, you can begin to accomplish the goals that you have, not just have so many goals that never get done.[00:08:00]

[00:08:00] Thanks for listening.

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