12 Strikes : Lessons Learned from Yearly Goals [08/12/2007 19:50:58]

About a year ago, when I turned 30, I set 12 goals for myself. The deadline was my 31st birthday, now seven days and a few hours away.

I failed on all 12 counts, but I've also learned quite a bit from my mistakes.

The first big mistake was a failure to consider all my roles. I set the twelve goals for my personal life, while my work life was out of control. I realized the problem a few months in, and tried to compensate by setting another set of goals for my business, mostly having to do with streamlining support. There were fifteen of those, and I gave myself a 6 month deadline. Even today, I've only delivered three or four of those.

The second big mistake was a failure to plan. I never quite got around to figuring out how I was going to accomplish all these goals. For the past few months, I've been setting smaller monthly goals, but, up until last month - when I finally made a plan for each of them - I hardly got anything done on those goals, either.

My third mistake was a failure to schedule my time. I tend to work on whatever's in front of me, or whatever happens to be on my mind, and I tend to keep working on the same thing until I get bored or fall asleep. As a result, I spend long periods of time on things that aren't important. I also commonly find myself working until four or five in the morning - sometimes even until noon - which causes all sorts of problems, like not being able to lift weights because it would wake my downstairs neighbor, missing phone calls, and not seeing the sun for days on end.

Closely related to scheduling, my fourth mistake was inconsistency. I worked out quite a bit, but I also had plenty of days where I ate too much junk and hardly moved. I practiced piano, but not often enough. And while I did focus for long periods on individual goals, there's no telling when I would get back to something once I stopped to sleep or handle something else.

My fifth mistake was a lack of accountability. I didn't track anything, and I didn't report to anyone on my progress, except this blog a few times, but (again) not on any consistent basis.

I feel like a flake for allowing these screwups to keep me from my goals, and for not correcting the situation sooner. They're all things I knew intellectually but didn't think to apply. But there's no point feeling bad about it. Now that I know better, I can just make a new list and try again.