The missing key about being specific with your goals.
“Be specific about your goals and visualize it!” – Random guru.
This is another thing that’s right but it’s easy to mess up due to the guru missing a core part of this advice.
A goal is easy to confuse it’s 2 parts: 1) The path, 2) The destination.
A lot of people become specific about the path AND the destination, which is often crippling. Being specific about how you’re getting to Argentina isn’t a good idea if that’s your goal. Being specific about getting to Argentina is a good idea and leave OUT the methods to get there. Why bother planning out a road trip and mapping every single little turn if halfway through you breakdown halfway through and need to hitchhike? Or if someone just offers you a plane ticket to go?
Build a plan the best you can, but focus on the objective and NOT the path.
This happens in relationships too where people describe this person they want, “He has to be 6’2″, totally jacked, brown hair and blue eyes.” Who cares – this is describing the path. The objective is to be in a great relationship, and that can happen with people that don’t fit that exact description.
Being specific on the goal is important, but being specific on the means is not. The next misinterpretation is when people don’t bother coming up with a plan, but you need a plan, and then progress along it, and then adapt to new plans as they emerge by not locking yourself into a single plan.
Lock yourself into the objective, not the plan. – Truth Cake.
What goals have you had where you realized you were being too specific on the plan and actually lost focus of the end objective?