There has been a growing productivity backlash across the blogosphere, and quite frankly, I’m tired of it.
There’s Get Nothing Done (a play on the productivity system Getting Things Done), and countless blog posts about how they’re not setting New Year’s Resolutions and that resolutions are stupid.
Perhaps all of these negative people are simply trying to be “controversial” in an effort to gain readers. When you ALL write “Anti-Resolutions” posts, it’s not controversial, it’s yawn-inducing. I’ve never skipped through posts faster.
Goals are not the problem. Resolutions are not the problem. Your failure to achieve your own goals and resolutions is the problem.
This is nothing to be embarrassed about. No one is perfect. We all fail, all the time.
The key is to get back up and keep on trying.
You will never accomplish anything if you don’t try. You will die alone and anonymously. And I’m willing to bet you’ll have a LOT of regrets on your deathbed.
Stop settling for mediocrity. You are better than that. I know that deep down inside, you know you’re better than that, too. So start acting like it!
Get up. Set your goals. Set big goals. Set really big goals. Then make a plan and follow through on your plan. If you get off track, get back on track.
Just stop giving up! Or if you do give up for good, quit taking pride in it. Giving up is the only true way to fail.
I’m too busy to wallow in self-pity alongside you. In fact, I’m too busy to write any more of this post.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh wow, that’s a whole lot of vitriol. But you make a good point.
Here, here! I agree with you completely. In fact, you said it so well I have nothing more to contribute on this particular subject.
I had not read your blog before, but after following this link on Twitter I’m a new fan. Especially since “Atlas Shrugged” is one of your top five! Looking forward to delving into your posts.
I have to agree. There’s a lot of anti-productivity posting going on. I think that 2007 was the year of forced productivity for many people who are normally procrastinators. The backlash is that everyone wants to be ultimately lazy. =)
I think the greatest thing about your post was “The key is to get back up and keep on trying.” As Donald Trump and Bill Zanker would say, you have to be persistent.
Agreed – Sometimes It’s easier to blame something else other than ourselves. Wait a second, it’s ALWAYS easier! Goals are just that, they inspire you to do better… they are not a mandate that must be followed and goals don’t need to be met… but, they push you towards something. Something that is beyond the ordinary you. The ordinary you wants to quit or say resolutions are stupid. The extraordinary you sets goals and needs constant pushing to reach them. I consider your post a push. Thanks.
Awesome article! It is ALL up to us whether we do or do not. We CAN do it, if we DO IT and stop talking about it. Even if your goal is to “get nothing done” you are still making a choice.
I’m totally with you on this! If you fail, don’t sweat it! Get up, and do something else. And if that fails, try again!
If it is to be, it’s up to ME!
Thank you for this post, Marina.
Our readers need to hear more encouragement to end mediocracy– we can’t do it alone.
-Stop Blogging
I disagree somewhat.
The kind of rhetoric that you advance here – set a goal, make a plan, follow that plan no matter what – does not work for a lot of people.
True, some of the people who are not achieving their goals are just not working hard enough. But more often, in my experience, people have the wrong goals – and in this case, more effort is not the solution.
If you keep failing to reach your goals, I think it’s much more useful to examine your goals, than to just work harder to reach them. In fact, I find, that when I have the right goals, I tend to reach them much more efficiently.
However, I agree completely that this is not controversial at all
)
Here’s a response I typed just this morning. I have to admit, when I saw somebody leaving a post about goal setting, I was yawning a bit. “Yeah, yeah; we’ve heard it all before. Then, I took the time to really think about it, and this is what I wrote:
++++
I’ve found for me I always couldn’t stand setting goals, formally, anyhow. However, everything I had studied regarding succeeding encouraged goal setting. So, I kept doing it. It was rare that I met an objective on time, and yet I was always further ahead.
Then, something magical happened. No, it wasn’t the Beatles, tho that was pretty cool, too. Through this process of writing goals and moving forward, finding motivation and moving forward, creating ideas and moving forward; I was led to a point beyond MOTIVATION, and INSPIRATION was the rule, not the acception. The difference is PUSH vs. PULL. I am ‘pulled’ to excel, pulled forward, pulled to great abundance.
I want to share this message of personal experience for all those out there who shudder to think about setting goals, yet again; one more time.
Keep doing it. Keep doing it. Keep doing it. You establish your goals, and today, tomorrow, or years from now (they’re going to pass anyway), the goals will be ‘establishing you.’ They will lift YOU, they will motivate YOU. What a great personal discovery.
–Dave Charbonneau
http://www.TheNetworkCapitalist.com
http://www.TheChickenWIRE.com
Thanks for the comment on my blog, I will check out the free guide and your blog to my feed.
I meant add your feed to my reader
It’s true, there do seem to be a lot of “I hate new years resolutions” posts out there this year. Some people try to achieve a goal but fail too many times and become disheartened. Too often they focus on the running from something they hate rather than reaching for something they’d love. You are absolutely right about that attitude about making mistakes. Look at Olympic athletes, they go through ups and downs, failures and successes but they don’t give in.
Yes, yes, yes. Thanks for this. I was going to post on how I did my annual review, my new goals, and so on,but these posts were everywhere.
Instead I spent some more time with my wife and did some reading and research on other topics. Now I feel vindicated and ready to kick off some great new things, without the navel-gazing.
Thanks, Marina.
Clear, concise and to the point.
I agree with you and have noticed a lot of people either giving up or thinking they are too cool to actually write their resolutions down and give it a shot. I started writing them down this year and I think a constant remainder is important when we “fall off the wagon” as that is inevitable to happen to all of us at some point.
This post is so on point!!!!! Saving this to blog about later LOL!!!
I like the approach of Alexander Kjerulf, above: attention to what our goals are.
I’d add some perspective on: the role of goal-setting in our lives, and the great pattern of life.
Somehow, in the successful-entrepreneur-to-be culture I find myself in, I find a wealth of selfish goals: Make $X dollars, by year such-and-such; Get a house, a boat, find a pretty wife, live by the beach, and so on. It’s not that I’m angry about this; But rather: they seem to be on the small side. The genie from the bottle can demonstrate: “What would you like?” and the person responds: “Wealth, castle, and pretty wife.” This is a shallow dream. Contrast with Oberto Airaudi, founder of Damanhur, or the dreams of activists, many of whom are doing the work of saving the Earth, and so on. Now who is dreaming large, and who is dreaming small?
And why are we reading (success) books that encourage small dreams?
I’d point to Napoleon Hill’s later works, nearer to the end of his life; He wrote a book called, “You Can Work Your Own Miracles.” Most people don’t point to this book, but I found it intensely interesting and invigorating. Napoleon Hill goes deeper into his true cards (spirituality,) and he notes that he was short-sighted to pay attention only to extravagant stories of personal wealth accumulation. I believe he saw that much of the work that goes on is not in steel and empire (which, surely, is important,) but much closer to the ground.
Sadly, I think the real problem is that there’s not enough prescriptive guidance on goal techniques that actully work. For example, while a lot of people may know about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals, not everybody knows the real keys to effective goal setting.
Probably the single most important thing behind creating a useful goal is to have a compelling “why”. Sure, it sounds obvious once you know it, but if you don’t know it, there’s a good chance you’ll miss your goals. You why is your staying power and your guide. If you have a compelling why, you’ll find the strategies.
Now, assuming you have your compelling whys and your ladder is up against the right wall, how do actually carve up an effective plan? Not everybody is familiar with creating work breakdown structures. Not everybody has a reliable mentor or somebody they can model their success from.
I think it really is a case where proven practices go a long way for effective goal crafting and reaching your goals. A lot of action without insight is a recipe for learned helplessness, just like a lot of insight without action, is yet another path to unfullfilled dreams.
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