Feb
3
Setting Goals – Language Matters
Photo Credit: #12-Goals by Flickr user John O’Nolan, used under a used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.
An entertaining post on the difference between being on a mission and having a mission statement on the Harvard Business Review blog inspired some thinking about goal setting for runners. While the post spends some time distinguishing having a clear mission and writing a mission statement for that sake of public relations, the real value is in its analysis of examples of corporate mission statements. And it is here where the lesson lies for runners.
It seems that many runners, like corporations, are afraid to make big, bold commitments, likely driven by a fear of a failure to meet such expectations. And we, like IBM and the non-profit organizations mentioned in the post, tend to use wiggle-words to hedge our lofty sounding ambitions. While we may not use the same obtuse corporate-gobbledy-gook (though the author provides an example of what Michael Phelps’ mission statement might look like, were he to do so), there are certainly plenty of instances of too-tentative commitments. A quick scan of the “goals” that some athletes have posted with their dailymile profiles uncovered the following:
“Running xxx race in Feb. and hoping to beat last year’s time.”
“…and train for 2011 Fall marathon.”
“keep moving and plan another marathon”
“…try to BQ…“
Now this isn’t picking on specific goals, and this isn’t getting into the value of specific, stretch goals (“break 3:00 at teh Towpath Marathon in October, 2011″) versus general lifestyle goals (“get fit”), as both have their place. For example, the Steve Jobs quote that the author of the post cites – “I want to make a ding in the universe” – is a bit vague, though emotive. But note the language of these “goals” – is the goal really “to train,” “try,” “plan“, or “hope“? Those are wiggle words, and if you have to use them to state your goal, you have already given up on meeting it, even if you don’t explicitly acknowledge that fact.
So think about your own goal, whether written or just in your head. Are you committed to achieving, or to just trying? Are you committed to a result, or just a process? Are you automatically discounting your odds on reaching your goal by hiding behind hedges or caveats? Far better to have a specific, aggressive stretch goal and ultimately fail to meet it while all along being convinced you can, than to head into a worthwhile endeavor with the baggage of wiggle words clouding your mission. Language matters, even for those conversations you have only with yourself.
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