If you’re anything like me, you don’t do well with long, drawn-out goals. It it’s not short and sweet, it’s just not going to happen.
Instead, I highly recommend shotgun goals.
It may sound like I’m contradicting my earlier post about big hairy audacious goals, but I’m not. We all absolutely need to aim at a target on the distant horizon — this is good leadership.
Rather, I suggest compressing goals into a reasonably tight time frame for the sake of focused intensity.
Why not rip off the band-aid whenever possible?
Let’s say you want to read the whole Bible front to back. Normally, reading plans split it into one year. Since the Bible has 1,189 chapters, this means reading 3.25 chapters every day to finish it in 365 days.
That was my exact situation. But I’m flaky and very unlikely to do the same thing, every day, for an entire year. I would probably miss a couple of days in a row, then be overwhelmed and try to catch up but fail miserably. Then somewhere around the beginning of April, I would likely give up completely.
Plus, I would definitely have forgotten what I read six months ago, missing the big picture context of the Bible.
It seemed I could follow through on reading the Bible every day for four months, though. I may be flaky and get bored of a repetitive daily schedule after a few months, but 120 days isn’t that long.
The new math is this: 1,189 chapters / 120 days = 10 chapters a day. Heck, even I can read 10 chapters a day for 120 days!
And so can you.
Shotgun goals and focused intensity are powerful. They explain how you can get out of debt quickly and have fun at the same time.
Don’t just accept a big goal will take you years. See if there’s a way to shotgun it into a few months or weeks!
Never be afraid to re-write the terms for your goals. You know your quirks and can plan around them. Trick yourself however necessary to be truly effective and accomplish your milestones. I have to trick myself constantly to get anything done.
And a great way to get things done is to tighten up the schedule and increase your effort.
Hence, shotgun goals and focused intensity.
How do you feel about concentrated deadlines? What if you could find a way to accomplish your goal in weeks or months instead of years? Share your thoughts below.