Especially while in Corporate World - because the concept of independent goals apart from those handed to me by the people paying me was a slick HR concept created to keep us from losing the will to live, and my personal goal was simply not to kill any idiots.
I was always tempted to put "Control Fist of Death" in one of those silly-ass self evaluation forms, but I always chickened out.
It isn't much better in sales - one of my favorite training experiences was taught by a guy whose parents had basically handed him a book of business on a silver platter, and he truly thought he was the shit because he was so successful. I could have taken what he was saying more seriously if he'd actually done it, but as the saying goes, he was born on third base and thought he'd hit a triple. I simply could not relate to his advice. 1) I strongly suspect that he turned off three customers for every one he dazzled with his shtick; and 2) I think it's really dangerous to believe your own bullshit.
There's a whole industry devoted to whipping corporate types and sales types into productive frenzies, mostly run by former salespeople who found it was a lot easier to sell dreams to other corporate and sales types than to work with the public. In my time I've seen a lot of the big names (though never, ever on my own dime and never voluntarily): Zig Ziglar (a very nice man and entertaining speaker, though I couldn't remember a damn thing he said because the platitudes and folksy stories didn't mean a thing to me); Tony Robbins (ditto, though as I recall, TR was much louder and less folksy) and a swarm of other "business coaches" and "motivational gurus" and trainers. I remember them whipping an arena full of fans into a frenzy, and getting a bunch of middle-aged corporate and sales types to stand up and shout what they were told to shout in unison, and thinking, "I just don't get this shit." And I still don't. I don't get paying somebody else hundreds of bucks to nag me and shower me with "motivation." If I'm not motivated, nobody's gonna make me be motivated, and that's that. Hmmmph.
So I have to laugh at myself now, because I'm reading this Kindle book that I got for 99 cents:
Goal Setting: 13 Secrets of World Class Achievers
And I'm really impressed with it, because the author (who also will be happy to sell you a program to set goals for a couple of hundred bucks, you can Google him if you wish) really did a nice job of distilling a whole lot of advice from various sources, with exercises that, if you actually do them and I am doing them, really will help you formulate goals. I am NOT going to buy his program, because I've been there and done that, and I really think if you aren't motivated enough to sit down and follow a .99 book you probably are wasting your money on the bells and whistles, but I had to share it because so many people are making goals and resolutions and swearing they will do things differently in 2012, and I'm one of them, and this is actually helping me draw a roadmap of what I really need to do and focus on right now to get the year launched with energy and focus. Not bad for 99 cents.
I have an old-ish futon in my office/guest room. It's quite comfy; it's topped with a memory foam mattress topper and also has an old down throw. As you can see, it is in dire, desperate need of COLOR, but Sophie likes it just as it is. This is what Sophie did today while I sat at my desk:
Tough life.
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