So, the wife ran her marathon this weekend. She did the marathon in 4 hours 35 minutes and 23 seconds. She is a badass. She sped up from mile 15 to mile 26… passing tons of people around mile 17. So, the wife accomplished her goal. Which leads me to today’s topic of “Goals.” Everyone knows what they are, and everyone sets them. So lets hear some questions about “Goals.”
Thanks this week go to Chris Corrigan, Nadolny, Brett Wood, Lord Pithy, Reilly Brown, Steev, Some Other Guy, Wifey, and Mimma. Onto the questions!
1. Why do you think goals are better than questions?
Questions have their place. I find that questions are a nice thing to model over arching themes for one’s life, but the open ended nature of questions make actions harder to determine. Goals allow for the creation of action plans.
2. What happens if you should, by some strange coincidence, achieve your goals?
You pause, and then create new and better ones.
3. Your favorite sport is soccer (I think), is the goal your favorite part of the game, or is the moving back and forth (ok, yeah, I don’t know what it’s called) your favorite part or is there a part I haven’t recognized?
I love most aspects of soccer, so I dig the back and forth probing of the offenses and defenses, the exploiting of weaknesses and the tactical match up between teams, but I have to say the lead up to and the scoring of the goal is always a fun thing to watch.
4. What’s on your bucket list of goals for life?
Duh, immortality
5. I don’t like soccer but I do enjoy when the announcers yell goal, do you enjoy that as well?
Eh, not so much. Andres Cantor is the guy who made it “popular.” Now all the other “Gooooooooooooal” calls are just mimics who haven’t branched out on their own to define their own style.
6. What is the goal of your blog?
I just want to entertain some people and myself.
7. How awesome would it be if someone followed you around to scream, “Gooooooooooooooooal!!!” every time you accomplished a task?
I would have much better goals and more goals as well. I would be doing anything and everything in my power to put check marks by the items on my to do list, and then ripping my shirt off and sliding into the corner of the conference room in celebration.
8. Would you enjoy work more or less if there were a giant lighted scoreboard?
Depends on who I am up against that day. There are some people I would never want to be compared to productivity wise /cough/ my wife /cough/.
9. Have you ever set a goal, accomplished said goal, and felt a little let down by the experience?
Of course. One of the issues that one hopes to run into is the eventual disappointment of success… didn’t fill in the hole that you thought it would, did it?
10. What is your most unrealistic goal from childhood that you still, against all hope, hold onto?
I think I still haven’t completely given up hope of getting some art published for profit in one of the major comic book labels.
11. Do you ever make a list of super-easy goals just so you can feel better at the end of the day? Give examples
Breathe, Eat lunch, Say “Hello” to coworkers, Shower… I have no idea what you mean… I am quite the success… well, except for the whole “Shower” thing
12. What were your goals for yourself as a child, and how have those goals changed as you grew?
Since I was really young (around 5-ish) I have wanted to do things with my art… For example, as a pre-teen kid I wanted to save hot pre-teen girls from maniacal super villains using my artistic skills. I never really figured out the details on that one, I was 12, what do you want from me. Now, I want to save super models from nefarious madmen using my artistic skills. Again, the details on this goal are hazy at best.
13. What goals have you achieved, failed, or abandoned over time?
Goal Achieved: I am for the most part a happy person
Goal Failed: I did not go as far with my soccer as I once wanted
Goal Abandoned: Self powered flight…. I am not an aeronautical engineer with unlimited resources.
14. At what point does one decide that a goal is unattainable?
I think when the capabilities are completely gone. For a good long while I felt like getting some art published was unattainable due to the deterioration of my drawing skills, but reapplying myself to art and the new democratization of the publishing industry, it might be attainable now. on the other hand, playing soccer professionally is completely out of the question now, for I am too old, too decrepit, and too unskilled for that to be an option.
15. How do you know if a goal is based in reality or is simply your ego telling what is possible (think bad singer on American Idol)?
Full disclosure here: I have never watched even one minute of American Idol, but I think I know what you are getting at. I think the only way to have that is to have a strong and realistic support system around yourself. You have to have a friend that you believe who will tell you that you are out of your frakking mind if you want to pursue a particular goal.
16. How do you decide at what cost you are willing to achieve a goal?
That is all relative. There are monks out there self-immolating for the goal of a free Tibet, and who is to say what cost is too much. There is nothing that I “would leave on the field” if the goal were the continued safety and health of my family, for example. However, there are limits to my efforts where the goal of self-flight is concerned.
17. Is it a coincidence that the Olde English word “gaol” (meaning “jail”, or “to jail”) is so similar in spelling to “goal?”
I think some people are “locked into” their goals and “trapped by” their goals so the simple vowel shift is interesting, and some instances, rather un-ironic.
18. What was your last big goal? What is your next big goal?
hmmmm… I cannot say that I am super goal oriented, as you can probably tell by my answers. I would have to say that my last achieved goal was to get some art published. I have some work published with a small game publishing company and with an independant author. My next big goal? I would have to say is more associated with getting back down to a reasonable level of fitness and weight. It is time for me to be serious about my health.
19. What is the secret of creating a good goal?
I think reasonably attainable is the biggest one. Yes, goals should stretch you in ways that you never thought possible, but they should be, overall, attainable. I think over-all, all-encompassing goals should be able to be chopped up into quantized bite-size attainable goals.
20. What is your next step to attaining an overall goal, without giving away the goal itself?
More juice.
To recap:
Our 3 year old is hopped up on goof-balls, right now
Orapred, Tons of Xopenex, Azithromycin, and Benadryl cocktails
She is riding the Dragon right now
And the Dragon is a fickle beast
She.
Is.
Out.
Of.
Her.
Mind.
The house is a wreck
But my wife finished a marathon this weekend
She is a badass
I am rather tired
I have a couple of interviews going right now, but I am open to others…
E-mail me or leave a comment and we can make this happen