THE NEW YORK TIMES
21 DECEMBER 2003
BY ABBY ELLIN
The Rewards Of Persistence
Extracted from the article...
I'VE never quite understood New Year's resolutions. Why
designate just one time of year to pursue ambitions you should be chasing all
along?
Who knows how many will actually meet their goals next year, or thereafter?
What I want to know is why some people, especially young adults, can follow
through on their goals and zoom to the top, while others can keep to a plan for
only a few minutes.
Some people, however, may need a nudge from an outside source, and they can
get it for a price. For $75, you can buy GoalMaker software
(www.goalmaker.com), which trains you to ''identify, set, organize, manage and
reach your goals.''
For a copy of the full article go to http://www.nytimes.com and search
for GoalMaker.
THE COMPUTER PAPER
GREATER TORONTO EDITION, 3 JANUARY 1998
BY CHUCK CALLOZZI
Goal setting and success
It's often said that just three percent of the population sets
goals. It is this three percent that are the big achievers, the
dream catchers. The rest of us are like rudder-less ships drifting
in the sea of life. Our destination? Who knows? We arrive wherever
the currents and tides take us.
Why don't more of us take charge of our destination? Although there
may be many reasons, I believe the main explanation is that no one
taught us how to do so. Goal setting programs can teach you how
to set goals and manage them. To understand how they work, let's
watch our hypothetical subject, Joey, working through a goal setting
program.
Joey takes control
Joey's new program suggests that Joey set goals in all areas of
life: family, business, financial, spiritual, health and more. Being
young, Joey's chief concern now is career, or lack of one. So, Joey
decides to start with a career goal.
Currently, Joey waits tables, but dreams of succeeding in the entertainment
business, so Joey sets a career goal of entertainer! Granted, the
goal does appear a bit vague, but at least it's a starting point.
It can always be edited and refined later.
The program now forces Joey to reflect on what steps are needed
to move closer to the goal. So Joey makes a list of the things that
first come to mind:
- Join a Toastmasters' club
- Write comedy routines
- Participate in amateur comedy night at clubs
- Audition as a stand-up comic
- Take rnodeling courses
- Become a model
- Get an agent
- Take acting classes
- Work as a movie extra
- Work in TV commercials
- Join relevant associations for networking
- Build a portfolio
Next, the program directs Joey to break down each of the above
sub-goals into tasks, and show the dates that they will be performed.
Joey thought the first sub-goal, 'join Toastmasters,' would be a
good idea to develop speaking skills and gain experience speaking
before groups. Joey then divided this sub-goal into the following
tasks:
- Check my community newspaper for Toastmaster meetings in my
area.
- Visit three clubs as a guest.
- Choose one club to join.
- Join in the training program
- Join in speech contests.
- Become a member of the executive committee.
After scheduling the above tasks, Joey continues by adding and
scheduling tasks for each of the remaining 11 sub-goals (write comedy
routines, participate in amateur comedy night at clubs, etc.). Joey
will have the chance to further refine and embellish the goals when
reviewing them each day. As goals are completed, new ones will be
regularly be added, always advancing toward the ultimate career
goal.
In only a matter of days, Joey realizes life now has direction!
Even the table waiting job has meaning - part of the salary can
be used to pay Toastmaster club dues. Today Joey is moving toward
a drearn - and succeeding.
Back to reality
The power of goal setting is that it breaks down overwhelming dreams
into easily manageable tasks. Will Joey succeed? We can't say, but
the chances are better than if Joey didn't go through the goal-setting
exercise. What will Joey become? A movie star? Great speaker? Top
model? Again, no one knows at this stage. One thing is certain:
as long as Joey persists in the goal-setting program, success in
the entertainment industry will come, in one form or another. Congratulations
Joey!
Goal setting programs can help you
There's more to goal setting than I outlined above, but at least
you are now familiar with the general idea. You may not need a computer
to set goals, but here are some of the ways goal setting software
can help you:
- Teach you how to set goals
- Simplify and automate goal setting procedures
- Make it easy to manage, review, and edit your goals
- Monitor and display your progress in the form of reports, tables,
and graphs
- Eliminate fear by reducing overwhelming goals into easily manageable
tasks, increase confidence by displaying your successes
- Motivate you to add new and more challenging goals
- Help you to stay focused on your goals
- Help to clarify and expand your vision
- Force you to set achievement dates
- Show you what needs to be done daily with a to-do list
- Remind you of approaching tasks
We are now ready to introduce you to eight goal-setting programs,
eight paths to success. Unlike spreadsheets or word-processors that
all share similar appearances and features, goal setting programs
vary widely. This is due, in part, to them not having been around
long enough for a standard to be established. Moreover, the chief
designer of a program may be a psychologist, scientist, motivator
business-person, or computer programmer, which also explains why
the programs take different approaches.
Rather than delve into each program at great length, I will concentrate
on their differences. Fortunately, six of the eight programs are
available on the Internet as 30-day trial versions (share-ware),
so you can try them out before deciding which is the best program
for you.
GoalMaker
From: Access Able Systems
Platform: Win 3.1/95
Registration price: US$49
Most helpful: GoalMaker, from Australian developer Access
Able Systems, is packed with more help than any of the other programs.
If you're interested in goal setting and wish to learn as much as
possible about the topic, this may be the program for you. Look
at what it offers you in the way of help:
- An Introduction to GoalMaker full-screen folder with 10 tabs
jammed with useful information.
- Tutorial screens that help you every step of the way.
- Superb on-line help. When clicking on contents in the help menu,
two screens open. All subjects appear in the form of a tree in
the right-hand window. Click on a subject in that window and all
topics about that subject appear as branches of the tree. Click
on a topic that interests you and all the information appears
in the left-hand window.
- Context-sensitive help. Are you about to do something, but are
confused? Hit F1 and the help windows mentioned above will automatically
open at the right place to answer your question.
- Eight sample files showing how the program was used by a salesperson,
business-person, net-worker, athlete, counsellor, coach, student,
and author.
- A beautiful 165-page manual in the form of an Adobe Acrobat
file that you can down-load with the GoalMaker software.
A clinical psychologist and a business/training consultant developed
the program. The training consultant part of the team explains the
emphasis on help in the program. The psychologist's input is likely
to take you by surprise: as you are busily working on your goals
in the program, a new window will suddenly appear against a plain
background, and in the window, a message will point out one of your
goals, ask you to focus on it and then lead you through a visualization
exercise.
Both members of the team probably contributed to the great detail
given to each goal. This attention exceeds that of most of the other
programs. For example, after creating a goal, just click on the
correct tab to add as much detail as you want on the following subjects:
benefits, obstacles, strategies, the reward you will give yourself,
and linked short-term goals. Included among its many other features
are graphs to show your progress and a list of your victories.
One of the most valuable features is the tree view (hierarchical
diagram that displays all goals, sub-goals, tasks and their due
dates) because with just one click you can instantly view your overall
plan. There's even a bar graph to display how you were feeling emotionally
on any given day in a wide range of areas.
Our rating: highly recommended
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