Do you have your 2009 goals yet? No, I’m not talking about resolutions. Oh, the difference?
- Resolution: a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something; the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc. Syn: aim, declaration, intention, purpose. (dictionary.com)
- Goal: the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end. Syn: destination, objective. (dictionary.com)
Call me pedantic, or say I’m splitting hairs, but I think there is a difference here.
I was at a Chamber meeting where a presenter was discussing goal-setting for businesses for 2009 (did a fine job). He talked about setting S.M.A.R.T. [tag]goals[/tag], planning and having mini-celebrations, and having a good support system. All good stuff.
One thing that I was really pleased to here him discuss as well was the idea of focusing on your [tag]strengths[/tag] rather than spending a lot of time trying to overcome your [tag]weaknesses[/tag].
He used the example we can all relate to of having someone come in at review time and say: “You are so valuable to us, but if you could just work on these one or two items, you would really be able to advance.”
I have yet to find a person who excels because they focused on their weaknesses. Studies bear this out. Sports shows us this. You know this. But leaders and managers still focus on the weakness. You know what I think? I think it’s an excuse for not being honest about performance, or about why they didn’t do something to reward the performance (see my comments about bucking performance reviews here).
This is an old post I happened to run across, but I really liked it, so want to highlight it for you:
Be the Best at Something Instead of Average at a Lot of Things
“It’s common knowledge that you should work on things you’re not so good at. If you’re a star baseball pitcher who can throw the ball faster than anyone else but can’t throw a curve ball to save your life then you should improve your curve ball. If you’re really good at math but can’t write worth anything then you should really try to improve your writing skills. You should try to improve your weaknesses so that you can do everything. Basically you should focus most of your energy on improving your weakest points.
I completely disagree! Spend most of your energy improving the things you exceed at, not your weaknesses.“
I love the examples used to describe why we should focus on our strengths rather than on trying to fix a weakness. (Go read the entire post.)
So why did I say I think there is a difference between ‘resolutions’ and ‘goals’? And what’s it got to do with stengths?
Let’s assume I’m not very patient in a job working with customers and I need to lose some extra weight.
Rather than:
- I will be more patient with irritated customers.
- I will lose 30 pounds by the end of the year.
But if I do like helping people and running, try:
- Resolution: Today I resolve to be more helpful with irritated customers.
- Resolution: Today I resolve to go to the gym 3 times a week.
- Goal: On Dec 31, 2009, I am the MVP for customer service in our company.
- Goal: On Dec 31, 2009, I am able to run a 10K in under an hour.
Focus on what you do well, and what you love to do. Focusing on being helpful will help me be more patient. Focusing on running will help me manage my diet better.
If you made resolutions (personal, family, business, whatever) but didn’t tie them to a goal, let me know when you break them.
If you made goals without resolutions (you would probably call those “action plans”) I’ll be really interested in how you’re going to achieve them.
Make both to have greater success in reaching them.
Recent Comments