Progress versus paralysis

Chapter 171

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.”—Benjamin E. Mays

Goals. A point we are moving toward. Reaching toward a different present. An objective you are pursuing. A dream you are chasing. Seeking to achieve something new. These are ways to understand goals, but these are limited and certainly not exhaustive.

But the key point here is that they all have verbs of motion connected with them: moving, reaching, pushing, chasing, seeking, etc etc.. When working with clients, I don’t monitor whether or not they reach their goals, but I am always monitoring if they were making progress, having movement toward their goals and objectives.

You have to measure and track this. Remember the old adage, you do what you measure. I start each day with two measurement and tracking processes. I track and monitor certain actions and behaviors on coachme.com. And I have a whole list of things that I am tracking and measuring on an old fashion spreadsheet. I have tried a number of other methods, but they have always failed me in some way. A spreadsheet is not sexy, but it is very dependable.

So achieving goals is wonderful, but not nearly as moving toward them. Most people seem to be paralyzed. Some by analysis paralysis, others by overwhelm paralysis, others by laziness paralysis and the rest by whatever, but we need to get moving. And measuring will define what we are moving toward. The actual measurement tools can help you have goals!

And here you thought spreadsheets were boring.