Ep 03 - Setting SMART Goals
Taking Small Steps to Reach Your Long Term Vision In our episode, The Wheel of Life, we talked about dreaming what the future could be with all of the aspects of your life. Now, we talk through how to set goals to achieve those dreams.
RESOURCES:
TRANSCRIPT:
David : Welcome to episode five of the third place podcast.
Mary : Five’s my favorite number.
David : Oh, cool. Sweet.
Mary : So it's gonna be a good one.
David : Yeah, they all are but it'll be special.
[intro-music]
David : So welcome everybody. My name is David Gaines,
Mary : Mary Allard here with you today.
David : Both restful and also like, you get a long weekend, but you enter Tuesday and you’re, like, Okay, wait, where am I?
Mary : Yeah, I was on a call just now. And he said, Have you guys dusted off the cobwebs yet from the weekend? And everyone chuckled. And that was not necessarily the case. And then the second question, which I thought was interesting, and only prevalent right now is, how risky were you in your hangouts? And do you honor social distancing? Or did you start to diverge on a little bit of a different take on it? So that was a cool conversation. Yeah, it was like, how honest is everyone being. It can get a little political maybe? Uh oh.
David : Well, fun. So today's episode, we wanted to unpack some goals and goal setting questions. And this really is as a continuation of the Wheel of Life Episode. So if you haven't listened to that episode, Episode Three, you'll want to check that out. In breaking down the wheel of life, the basic premise was that, hey, here's these six categories of life: career finance, family, social, physical and intellectual areas, and that they're also co dependent on each other, that if any, one area would be lacking or weak, then it really can throw the whole thing out of whack. So we unpack that some, and one of the challenges and there was a worksheet that came with that episode was, hey, picture what your life is, like, five years down the road, and each one of the categories, then kind of put it all together and see how they play. So a lot of that, in my mind is like, when I think about our business, it's where am I steering the ship? So by doing that exercise with your own life, it's where am I taking this thing? Like time is a limited resource, and our life is a limited resource. So how do we make the best of it? Well, what do we shine at? And how do we point our life in a certain direction, and that will really help us maximize our energy and what we bring to this world. So that sets the horizon. But now we have to do work on setting goals to get there. And that's really what we wanted to unpack in this episode.
Mary : And one of the first things that we were talking about too, is that even this podcast is a perfect example of that, that we had a goal in mind. And that was to start having these productive conversations being recorded and turn it into a podcast. And at a certain point, we just said, Alright, let's jump in. And let's do it. And a couple quotes come to mind that we found that felt were pretty applicable. And one of them was from Walt Disney, he said, the way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing so it sounds kind of funny when we're talking about it right now. But it really is that at a certain point, if you have a vision, and you feel more clear on it, then surround yourself with people and with the resources and then start to do the work to make it tangible. And we're gonna dive into goal setting and some concepts around that and how to make it tangible, quicker.
David : Yeah, the core of who I am, a core of who you are Mary, is being a teacher. And this is just a great platform. That's the stuff that you and I would talk about all the time is, in these conversations, you know, unpacking them and learning and wrestling and kind of shooting back and forth different ideas and working on them together. This podcast is really a continuation of this teaching. And now we get to include so many other people and by the way, have been able to get some feedback from some people and how rewarding it is to get feedback to know that these conversations are helping people and making a difference. So thank you for those words.
Mary : Yeah. Thank you, that is the coolest and so unexpected and adds a little fuel to our fire.
David : Yeah. All right, so let's dive in.
Mary : So goals. One of the first things that came up for both of us is an acronym that most people have probably come across at some point, whether it was in learning in business, or professional or personal development, but the acronym is SMART. And I think David, I was looking at who started that or where that originated and said it was George Duran, and that he was an author for management goals and objectives work. And that that was his way of consolidating how to make goals impactful, and stick. So I'll quickly say what the acronym stands for. And then we can break it down from there. But it stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time bound. And it's a way of setting and defining goals and guides you through the elements of the process that you should consider when you're laying out those objectives, and then manifesting it. And, you know, in the Wheel of Life conversation we talked about, okay, here's our vision, like in five years from now, and 10 years from now, here's the things that I would love to be a part of my friendship piece of the pie or my family piece of the pie. But it's all fine and dandy to understand what you want. But then it's getting there. And it's making it happen. And so, I've found that oftentimes, when I have these bigger picture ideas, I get a little bit crippled by the big picture, that it's easier to make it bite sized. And goals are my way of making things bite size, because then I feel like I can recognize my progress. And I can acknowledge that progress. And then that motivates me just like getting positive feedback. You're like, okay, I've done something. And it's not this mountain to climb. It's like, okay, I just got over this little Karen. And now I see the next sort of adventure ahead or whatever the next thing I have to climb, but you're you're able to look back and say, okay, I've made progress,
David : Right? I think that's why like the achievable, well, all of them being specific, measurable, achievable, are just so important. Because you have the long term vision, that's great. But if you can't ever achieve it, like I could have the dream of, I don't know, being a professional baseball player. That's not achievable, therefore it shouldn't be a part of my long term goals, you know, but so much of it is like that Walt Disney, quote, stop talking and get starting. Something I've said often is like, every journey of 1000 miles, the hardest step to take is the first step. And so but when you take that step, you're like, oh, that wasn't that bad, or like I did achieve something. And then it does play into this momentum building you and after two or three steps, you can start seeing some momentum, and you can get through the steps more quickly.
Mary : You read the book Traction right by Gina Wickman? We talked about that, like a year ago?
David : We talked about it. Yeah, I've read like the summary. And there's a follow up book called rocket fuel that I really like.
Mary : Well, one of my friends introduced me to it. She's a business female entrepreneur in Boulder. And I also went to this kind of one on one on it. And the reason why I mentioned it is it makes me think of how I was talking about climbing a mountain or whatever, and you look back and you're able to see your progress and acknowledge it and that having goals helps you have that bite size. Well in Traction, they do something called rocks. And you're supposed to only have three rocks, I believe, or don't quote me. But the gist that I had was that you only have three rocks at a time that really anyone should only be focusing on three things at one given moment. And they're supposed to be digestible. And one company I was told of this one story of a company that they physically would have their staff members take a rock and they would maybe write a word or something that acknowledged the work or the goal that they had. And when it was complete, they put it in a place that every one of their team members would pass throughout the day. I think it was like either the entry point into their office or a gathering space. And over time, they were able to see a physical representation of how much they had gotten done and it just got so large, the stack and pile of rocks that it ended up being like adding fuel to the fire and having that stoke around it and wanting to do more of also able to then acknowledge each other's growth and work and productivity that they've done. And I thought how cool, maybe goals really is like, how can you make things more tangible for people to see, just like project management tools, I think are trying to do that, like Asana and Trello, where you can have a visual dashboard and you move one thing to another. So there's like a satisfaction of crossing something off of a list or whatever it may be.
David : You know, what I love about that also, is, it allows for still a memory of the goal being achieved. Like when I think of a mountain and climbing to the top of a mountain, metaphorically or physically, it's like, when we get up to the top of the mountain. Immediately, our mind goes to Okay, now I get to get back down. Versus getting to the top of the mountain and savoring it. And so even when you have the goals, like there are all these many mountains that we're climbing, but it's like, how do we savor those moments as well? Like, how do we savor when we do achieve X, Y, and Z? And we've opened the business and made our first sale? Like, how do we pause in that moment to savor it instead of getting to Okay, how do we make that next sale?
Mary : I think that calls on your community a bit because it's hard for you independently to acknowledge and that maybe that has a bad connotation when you're gloating or or acknowledging the things that you've done, which I would disagree with, I love it when people can celebrate the things that they've done. But I do almost feel like it calls on your community to be able to have those moments of savoring, and remind you to savor. My husband would tell you this, that I'm a little bit of like a chronic do-er or like, I'm always trying to evolve in the next way and work on my next trauma or the thing that consumes my mind, and I'm always trying to focus on just being a little bit and stepping back and saying, Oh, wait, like, think I told you just last last week, David, I was like two years ago, I was in this mental space. Like, how cool that I'm in this space now? I forgot that I was working on that, because I've been so focused on working on the next thing, rather than like, Oh, wait, pause.
David: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up the community aspect. I think that that's a huge part of this whole goal setting. Even just as we are setting goals, and trying to identify them to get feedback from others around you who know you well, sometimes the outside perspective can really add a lot of value. I know for me, one of the things like I'm I am really good. I think it's a skill set to see into the future. Like I love thinking about big, big picture ideas. But it's not that setting goals and, or details or things that I can't do, but I don't do them well, or that I do the vision so well. Like, I actually just continue to live in that space. But I'm super. I know that about me both as a strength and weakness. And therefore I'm very intentional about surrounding myself with others who maybe are more detail oriented, or can identify goals a little bit more easily for me or with me.
Mary : Yeah, wouldn't you agree that the best goals are, especially in the workplace, are the ones that are agreed to by both parties? And I think that, in my personal experience at different workplaces, I've had many times where a goal was given to me, that was not achievable or not reasonable. Or it was close. But the dialogue never existed where I didn't get to have the opportunity to give a perspective from my side of the story. And so therefore, I felt like I was set up for failure rather than set up for success. And so I feel like goal setting is so incredibly collaborative, that's one of the most essential tools. And it's so that you can also hold each other accountable and achieve it and acknowledge it and all the things that we're saying. I think that there needs to be another party in order to make like, have it have its value.
David : Absolutely. Yeah, that achievable is so, so crucial, whether it's personal goals, or the communal goals of a business. We started a project last week. And we're like, we don't even know what we need to measure because we don't know what's achievable or not. And so it definitely had to be more of a conversation around it. And it's just a shot in the dark. We can give it an educated guess. Yeah, that definitely is a conversation there. It's so much value in community.
Mary : So that even speaks to so I said, I might have even just said the word achievable. That's “a” in the acronym SMART. And really making sure that it's realistic which is “r”. I like to stress though, too, that, realistic is one thing, they can still be a stretch. And I think that's an important thing too, is to feel like you're maybe a little bit outside of your comfort zone, but not so much so that it ends up being debilitating, and you maybe pull out personality types that are prone to procrastinating because it ends up being more anxiety producing than inspiring. But it's crucial for that conversation to be had, I think when we're talking about personal development stuff, I'm wondering if one of the things that's lacking in personal development work is that we maybe don't have that dialogue. And that's why you know, someone wants fitness, they're using an app, because it's helping them and there's that feedback, or it's, you know, you're joining a group or an online forum. And like the beauty of the technology we have right now that can give us that feedback and at a cadence that is helpful to us that we can determine and there's so many different avenues to have a back and forth collaboration.
David : Yeah, there's another kind of life principle that it's always in the back of my mind is who you are as the average of the five people you hang out with the most. So like, let's say you want to be a runner. But you hate running, the best thing you can do is like become friends with four other runners. Because then by default, the people that love it will share that passion. And then it's just inspiring and invigorating. And then before too long, you'll be a runner right alongside everybody else.
Mary : Yeah, exactly. That sounds like an extreme way to get to a goal. But you would be very much clear on the fact that you wanted to be a good runner. I guess to break down the rest of the acronym. S is for specific. And the measurable is also goes back to that too. So having it specific is helpful to not only the staff member, but also to the leader or to yourself so that you can actually look at it and say, What is this? And why is it?
David : Yeah, I mean, without question that's so important. And like I can speak to the other vision type people that lead teams, specific sometimes for me can feel like I'm giving very micromanaging type of expectations. But so many of my team because they are detail oriented, like they thrive in that it's not that I'm micromanaging. It's I'm almost giving them a safety valve. These are the expectations and then the dialogue that you just mentioned. Yeah, I remember the first time everyone was asking me for employee evaluations, I'm like, why, you're all doing a great job. No, they wanted to know where they were at, and what they could be working on, very specifically, so they could spend the next six months working on it. And this evaluation wasn't in this negative connotation, but very much a positive. So that's vision versus detail a little bit.
Mary : Well, and I see it as that you're talking about true results oriented leadership, which is that specific is important. But how they get there is the individualized approach that you're giving them space to then, how they get there is up to them. So I feel like something that's not as effective is that oftentimes people say we are results oriented companies, and we're focusing on this is that but then over time, you start to see that maybe people want to move the chess pieces in the way that they think rather than making it more personalized for the staff member. And that's probably just the lack of personal development or professional development practices in the workplace that are helping people understand each other more and be empathetic to their learning style or their productivity style or the productivity times and how many touch points they need. But I also think it's important that having ongoing conversations is definitely more impactful than those like annual reviews. And that's the old school way more and more is just an annual review versus having ongoing ones.
David : Oh, without question. Yeah, I think that's why I struggled with even doing them because like even as a company, my philosophy is not results oriented. I'd rather invest in people and then if I invest in people, we will get results. That's kind of a philosophy, right? So it always has been about ongoing conversations. And that's why we have an open, there's all these things that we have outlined some unspoken and some spoken rules about the culture of our business. But it was still so fascinating that even with the ongoing conversation, there still needed to be the six month checkpoint.
Mary : Yeah, this, this book that David and I are listening to called, it's the manager basically saying that there's a ton of statistics around how a lot of turnover and discontent in the workplace has to do with leadership. Right. And that's not new. I'm sure any of us on this, you know, listening to this podcast right now. But it mentioned that there's two things, one is there's what they call the five coaching conversations. And so they talked about that you should have, like just check-ins that are like two minutes, multiple times a week, like just pretty informal ones, just being human. And then it sort of layers up to that annual or semi annual review. So it's a much more holistic approach of all these conversations you should be having as a leader that's more like being a coach and less like being a micromanager. And that each one of them play a vital role. But it is a lot more touch points than just doing one. But that doesn't say that it's not important to do an annual or semiannual review that those are still incredibly impactful, and very focused, and also the ones that have the longest time given to it, you know, an hour or two hours, like it's an in depth deep dive.
David : Yeah. Part of what we've just kind of talked through too, is there's, we need to get back to this. But there's the goal setting of individual people. And that's really what we started with. But there is this goal setting, if you are a leader of an organization or a management, that is a collective thing. So it's like you have to work through the goals, answering the questions from the individual perspective, but then also working through the acronym SMART, as a leader too, I think is really valuable.
Mary : Yeah, couldn't agree more, the two layers just serve each other. And to make sure that we cover the whole acronym, so that everyone knows is you know, T stands for time bound. And I think it speaks for itself, but that it's less about just throwing something into the ether and then hoping it sticks. And it's more about, okay, here's, here's the timeline that I need to be able to get there so that I can keep moving in the direction that I want to move. And then I'm slowly steering that ship and the way that serves me and serves the collective. And so having some timing to it is important. And that might be I think, harder for some people to adopt. But it's vital.
David : The one thing I've seen people do that can be helpful is to bring, once the goals are set, and they follow these specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound guidelines. Every situation is different. But then, what does it look like to bring the public into that? And again, we've kind of just danced around community all the time, right? So how do we bring community into one setting the goal so that we can help bring additional eyes to the perspective, but then once the goals are set, I think that this helps the time bound one, how do we share it with other people maybe starting with people that are closer to us, but eventually bringing it into maybe a little bit more public version? Because there can be a healthy version of pressure to say, Hey, I'm gonna write start this new project, you know, and you throw it out to the world and see what happens.
Mary : Are you someone that, um, when a deadline approaches, I guess, do you procrastinate?
David : A little? Yes. And no. I mean, I think I can work through goals pretty well. But I definitely like the timeline. Like, you know, there was a talk that I gave, and it helped us, like, finish out the website for this podcast, because I had a deadline that I wanted to refer people to, and that was super helpful. Yeah. I think the more for me that. Are you familiar with the quadrant of like, urgent, non urgent, important, and not important?
Mary : Yeah, I actually feel like maybe you told me about it a couple years ago.
David : So it's just a really great quadrant, just Stephen Covey in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is where I think who came up with it, but we live so much of our lives in this important phase of life. But then when we identify the things that are like, we're working on, lots of things fill up the important space so there's important and urgent, and then lots of unimportant things fill up that urgent space too. And you're like, why am I doing this? And why is there so much pressure to get this done now? And when I think of the time bound issues and procrastination, it's not that I'm procrastinating, it's that I can find myself doing unimportant tasks that have an urgency to them for whatever reason. So part of the goal setting is, can we get more and more important things into the non urgent quadrant of life. So they're important, and we're working on them, but there's not so much urgency to them, so that we can do them well, and things like that. So that's, I think, more than tension that I live in. But by having deadlines, it definitely helps push things along.
Mary : It made me think about that maybe some of the time, what I did spend energy on it has emotional weight, rather than, I don't know, an intellectual weight. And so therefore, it can feel important to me, because I know that it's the quickest way for if I get it done, it's the quickest way for me to mitigate anxiety that feels more challenging for me to sit with, then otherwise. And then another thing that comes up for me too, is just that if I come close to a deadline, I actually get a little bit stuck in cement, whereas I like to get a project and then I like to sort of fix it or nip it in the bud sooner than later. Because then otherwise, I'm actually stressed by the pending deadline. And I end up being less productive with a deadline. So I'm, you know, which is a little bit counter to like an artist or something that loves to have that last minute where they get this like a wave of intense productivity, and they suddenly have put a ton of things on paper. I'm totally the opposite.
David : Yeah, I’m more like the artist I think.
Mary : Yeah, that is not me. But I am very much emotionally driven. So that's why working for companies and doing tasks that bring my emotions into it. So caring about, you know, if it's in the natural food space, in the past, I've only worked for companies that I truly love the product that they're putting out there. And I can speak to it, like I am the owner, the best ambassador for it, or that we have a social responsibility mission that is near and dear to my heart. Like when I worked at the tea spot, we donated 10% of all of our sales to health and community wellness programs. And it had to do with the founders, being a cancer survivor, and my mom's a cancer survivor. So knowing that I'm so emotionally driven, my work has to be aligned, because otherwise the motivation just like, lacks.
David : Right. Well, I mean, that brings us back full circle, like so that's the whole point of the wheel of life, right? It's all intertwined. And when we can get them all to line up, and then we can set goals in each of the areas that match, you know, so for you matching a company and their values with your work, helps to bring together the intellectual and the emotional energy, and therefore you're able to get more done. So. Yeah, that's a beautiful space, you know, and that, I think, is why I was wanting to do goals. Next was they go hand in hand with that wheel of life for that exact reason. Yeah. Hey, there's one more thing, you know, just as we might be wrapping up, there's a tool that I think that's really helpful right now. And this deserves its own podcast episode for sure. But because COVID is just so traumatic, as we are thinking through things I think is really important, at least bring up and identify. And it's helped me kind of navigate our business and my personal goals through our moment. And that's something called the beginner's mind, which is a really great principle. And I think that that's really helpful, just in today's world to have that as a tool in our toolbox. So again, I think this could be what absolutely should be a future episode. But Mary, could you speak to that for a moment?
Mary : Yeah. So beginner's mind is really coming with a blank slate to anything, whether you've done it 1000 times or not. And to me, it has an essence of just like gentleness, that means that even if this is completely familiar, you're giving yourself and you're giving others permission to approach it as if they were a newborn, and it's the first time they've been exposed. And so you're leading with generosity in the way that you could allow a lot of creativity or options to be surprised by how you approach it or in turn the outcome of it. And, you know, in the practice of yoga, it's very similar. It's like, you know, when you get to your mat, sort of setting that intention and clearing the space and having that beginner's mind so that you could you can be curious And if we can come from that place, I think that that's, you know, David's talking about that right now all of us could use a lot more generosity in our perspective of others and also in our approach or our response to what we're dealing with personally as well.
David : Yeah. Yeah, the curiosity to like, I mean, I've seen people online, just say they're so tired of doing the new normal. I mean, I might be tired of thinking about what the new normal might be, but like, when we can approach it from, like a newborn, my six month old has no idea what's going on, my two and a half year old has no idea what's going on. So the world is just new and inviting and exciting. And you know, you don't know its limitations, and you don't know its possibilities. And so everything is possible. So while we are wrestling with this new normal conversation, what does life look like there? I think that's part of what drives my hope that we talked about. So you're passed on so frequently, there can be this curiosity in this space. And there can be some really great things that are happening for that. So thank you for sharing that. And again, we definitely need to schedule an episode just on that topic.
Mary : Oh, totally. I mean, it's just like a reminder, just like take note, and like, just remove I think the judgment as much as much as possible and be curious and be in awe and be amazed and, you know, something I could even hear just like personally right now, is that like, leave room for being surprised? Because maybe you'll be surprised.
David : Oh, beautiful conversation as always.
Mary : Thanks, David. Thank you so much. All right. Be well, everyone.
