Building Your Architecture For Focus
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” — Pablo Picasso
For the past few articles we have focused on building three essential documents: Mission(s), which have included large abstract future objectives. You then took these missions and created a Vision Statement—painting a current picture of your missions as if they were a current reality. You then wrote a Legacy Statement—detailing the perspectives of others as they observed your life to its end. These three perspectives (future, present, and past).
You should be proud of your accomplishment. Very few people have ventured into such a personally creative and challenging process—one that builds inner drive, focus and commitment towards worthy objectives.
Let’s now move from 50,000 feet to where the rubber meets the road: Designing the goals that service the aspirational brush strokes above. That means cutting and sorting your life canvas in a meaningful and productive way. The following 7 Steps will help you translate your great intentions into more focused and concrete actions:
Step 1: Find your sanctuary. Find a place where you will have no interruptions for at least 30-60 minutes.
Step 2: Review your Missions, Vision & Legacy statements. Read through these statements and upload into your mind the imagery and sensations connected with these statements.
Step 3: Brainstorm all of your goals by theme. Use the Architecting Goals Tool or a piece of paper and begin to make a list of all of the goals that derive from each of your three strategic documents. After creating your master list (there is no pre-requisite number), identify the MLA’s that the goal represents. These arenas will most likely be similar to the categories you created for building your Mission(s) Statement, such as:
• Spiritual
• Physical
• Professional
• Family
• Personal
• Fun
• Other
Consider the label Spir. and begin drafting your spiritual goals. For physical goals, consider Phys. or Pro for professional, and so on.
Consider the following example:
| # | Goal | Rank | MLA | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Become the Vice President of my company | PRO | ||
| 2. | Publish a book in my field | PRO | ||
| 3. | Achieve a master’s degree | PRO | ||
| 4. | Create a unique innovation in my industry | PRO | ||
| 5. | Teach a college course in my field | PRO |
Step 4: Convert each goal into a SMART goal. Now that you have roughed in your goals for each of your most important life categories, it is time to re-draft each goal by using the five (SMART) criteria (see below). Each rough goal that you draft should be:
Specific:
• Clearly written and understood
• Who, what, where, which, who
Meaningful/Measurable:
• Personally significant and something you can count
Aggressive, yet Actionable:
• Challenging and compelling, yet doable
Realistic:
• Something that can realistically be accomplished
Time-phased:
• Something with a timeline or deadline
An example of a goal that lacks power or is too vague is, “Try harder at work”. As you can see, this general goal provides little clarity and a limited ability to channel your energies properly. Instead, if you craft your goal by using the SMART criteria, you can generate something more objective and with greater capacity to direct your energy.
With SMART goals in place, you have now transformed your vague intentions into a more clarified plan of action. Do this now with your entire lifetime goals list. This may take a while, but it will make all the difference. Go for it! Here is an example of what SMART goals look like:
| # | Goal | Rank | MLA | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Become the Vice President of Marketing within the New Products division within 10 years | PRO | ||
| 2. | Publish a book on marketing strategies within seven years. | PRO | ||
| 3. | Achieve a master’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing within three years. | PRO | ||
| 4. | Create a new marketing strategy that produces 10% more sales within six months. | PRO | ||
| 5. | Teach a college course in business marketing at the local community college within two years. | PRO |
Step 5: Clarify goals by estimating time of completion. Since you have already converted your goals into SMART goals, you should have a clear estimation of the time it will take to complete each one of them. Therefore, in the box on the far right, assign the length of time it will take to complete each goal on your list. Using the sample above, your list may look something like this:
| # | Goal | Rank | MLA | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Become the Vice President of Marketing within the New Products division within 10 years. | PRO | 10 | |
| 2. | Publish a book on marketing strategies within seven years. | PRO | 7 | |
| 3. | Achieve a master’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing within three years. | PRO | 3 | |
| 4. | Create a new marketing strategy that produces 10% more sales within six months. | PRO | 6mo | |
| 5. | Teach a college course in business marketing at the local community college within two years. | PRO | 2 |
Step 6: Clarify goals by value and meaning. With your SMART goals clearly defined by duration, it is now vital that you clarify the value and importance of each. To do this, consider the following ranking method: Your “A” goals represent goals that are the most important to you. These are goals that you must and will complete. Your “B” goals are goals that are important to you, but take a back seat to your “A” goals. Your “B” goals do not capture your time and attention until your “A” goals have been realized. Your “C” goals are your “someday, maybe” goals that come in third to your “A” and “B” goals. These goals are still important to you, but you will only move toward these goals when you have completed your “A” and “B” goals.
Now, go through your completed goals list and rank each goal, placing an A, B or C in the remaining column.
| # | Goal | Rank | LA | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Become the Vice President of Marketing within the New Products division within 10 years. | A | PRO | 10 |
| 2. | Publish a book on marketing strategies within seven years. | C | PRO | 7 |
| 3. | Achieve a master’s degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in marketing within three years. | A | PRO | 3 |
| 4. | Create a new marketing strategy that produces 10% more sales within six months. | B | PRO | 6mo |
| 5. | Teach a college course in business marketing at the local community college within two years. | B | PRO | 2 |
Step 7: Transfer all goals to their appropriate lists. With your lifetime goals list in place, take this list and transfer each goal to its own list, based on the timeframe for completion. Note: The included Flow Tool will have all of your lists in one document.
A final consideration for your goal-setting strategies is to identify the time necessary to plan out your goals. In the spirit of optimal efficiency, consider taking enough time with each of your goals lists to ensure that each represents accurately what you wish to accomplish within a given time. Consider the following as a “rule of thumb” when working on your various goals lists:
| Goals List | Planning Time |
|---|---|
| Lifetime Goals List (Long-Term) | One Day (8 hours)—Aggregate Planning |
| 25-Year Goals List (Long-Term) | One Day (8 hours)—Aggregate Planning |
| 10-Year Goals List (Long-Term) | One Day (8 hours)—Aggregate Planning |
| Five-Year Goals List (Long-Term) | One Day (8 hours)—Aggregate Planning |
| One-Year Goals List (Long-Term) | One Day (8 hours)—Aggregate Planning |
| Six-Month Goals List (Intermediate Term) | Half Day (4 hours) |
| Three-Month Goals List (Intermediate Term) | 2 Hours |
| One-Month Goals List (Intermediate Term) | 1 Hour |
| One-Week Goals List (Short-Term) | 30 Minutes |
| One-Day Goals List (Short-Term) | 15 Minutes |
| One-Hour Goals List (Short-Term) | Half Day (4 hours) 1 Minute |
ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLE: Take the time necessary to ensure your goals are up to date and accurate.
Taking some strategic time daily, weekly, monthly, bi-annually, and so on will be time well spent in the refinement and planning of each of your goal lists.
Enough said. Take some time this week and get these lists started. Then consider a plan to review these lists on a regular basis. Doing this Long Future (LF) and Short Future (SF) work will help you stay more focused in the here and now—the only place where we truly perform.