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The same logic is applicable in choosing means to achieve goals.

Conceptually
As much as we should not sacrifice tomorrow for today pleasure, we should not sacrifice today for our future. We want satisfaction of life, today and tomorrow.

When I choose a means to achieve a goal, I must choose a means that is worthwhile for me to live with. I must enjoy the means that I choose. I must feel good about the means. I must feel proud of it. I must find meanings in it. And if I die without achieving the goal, the means itself is a good reason for me to say my life is worthwhile that I’d never waste a single moment in life even though I do not achieve the goal. It is about live now…and improve future.

A single moment satisfaction in achieving a goal cannot be more important than the twenty years we spent to achieve this goal. It is twenty preparation years versus 30 minutes of exuberance achieving the goal. Which one is more important? When we realise time is homogeneous, we simply cannot say one is more important than the other.

Let’s say after we achieved our long term goal we looked back. Twenty years of insignificant meaningless fighting, backbiting, selfish taking and non-giving, all the people we betrayed, cheated and left, memories that we detest (of our own low behaviour and self respect) and would rather be erased. We knew we sacrifice a lot for this goal that we finally achieved. We enjoyed for a moment of glory and satisfaction, only to realise the emptiness of achieving this goal. There is nothing in this achieved-goal; there is nothing worthwhile in our twenty years of existence. We’d never lived until we achieved the goal. We sadly told ourselves we are leaning against the wrong wall. We told ourselves the price paid for the goal is too high.

On the contrary, let’s say after we achieved our long term goal we looked back. Twenty years of richly built relationships, twenty years of meaningful events and loving moments, hard work that we pride, moments that we lived, shared and enjoyed, difference we pride making in improving the world, etc. And we realised…this is a goal that enriched us for the past twenty years and will continue to enrich the rest of our life for just by owning the memory of the past twenty years. The means itself makes the goal worthwhile.

It is both MEANS AND GOAL that we choose that determine whether we lean against the right wall, and that determine whether we spent our life well.

It is in the means that whether a goal is worth pursuing. It is in the goal that whether a means is worth taking. It is a choice easy to make yet a plan so difficult to develop. The plan is difficult to develop because it has to satisfy both means and goal. But once the optimized solution is found, passion is natural and execution is simply easy.

Practically…
Therefore, unless we have figured out both goals and it means to achieve these goals, the goals bear no meaning at all. Writing down goals is only 10% of task of goal setting. We must figure out and embrace the means to achieve these written-down goals. If we have a goal but we are not happy with the means to achieve it, we should keep exploring alternatives until we satisfy with the means. Otherwise we should not pursue this goal even though we know the means is workable. For what? Wasting my life doing something that I do not find meaning in it but just to achieve a written-down goal and enjoy 5 minutes of happiness in achieving it? No way. It is about live now…and improve future.

If ultimately we cannot find a happy solution to optimize means and goal, it is about changing the goal.

Bringing it further…

Therefore it is wrong to kill now for future peace. Killing will never bring peace. Therefore it is wrong to start a war and create chaos in order to build a democracy world in future. Therefore Luke Skywalker threw away his lightsaber at the final moment with the Emperor. You cannot be in the dark side using the dark force and to bring light and justice to the world.

You can never achieve good in the future by doing wrong now.

…and this, steps into the arena of politics.

More resources in goal-setting at Steve Pavlina’s blog.
Read the principle behind the arguments.

Tags: Goals setting | Goal setting | lifehack

This entry was posted on Friday, June 2nd, 2006 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Goals setting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.