In a recent video post I explained a few of my reasons why I think that traditional goal-setting is broken, and why I’m exploring alternative models for creating an “open-focused” way of focusing our thinking and making progress in making the changes we want to make.

As part of my exploring and researching, I’ve been connecting with other coaches and personal development bloggers and asking them to share their views and it’s really been stimulating my thinking, so I wanted to share with you what some of them are saying, over the next few posts. There have been some interesting themes emerging, and this first theme that jumped out at me is that different people are getting benefits from focusing on different parts of the traditional goal-setting process. Let me take a step back and explain the traditional goal-setting process, since I’m also realizing that there are a lot of different ideas about what exactly the traditional goal-setting process is…

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I’ve done my best this year (as I always do), to avoid Christmas celebrations altogether.

Actually, even though I was a reluctant angel in the annual Christmas play at preschool (yes, that’s a four year old me in the photo… don’t you just love the combo of the bored face, droopy wings and crooked halo… for me it totally sums up the results when I try my best to “be good” and do what everyone expects of me, instead of following my idea of fun!)… but as I was saying, even though I was a reluctant angel, I haven’t always been a Christmas grouch…

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As this post about how to live your life without goals indicates, for some time now, I’ve been wondering about the relevance of traditional goal setting and looking for ways to create focus and progress that address or mitigate the drawbacks within traditional goal-setting.

I wrote about some of my concerns with the traditional S-M-A-R-T goal setting model over at The Change Blog and proposed another model I cheekily called S-M-A-R-T-E-S-T goals. And over the past year I’ve been trying alternative methods out in my own life and with my current clients and been bantering with like-minded (and smart!) people like Charlie Gilkey and Jamie Smart about alternative ways to create scaffolding that’ll support you to focus and create the experiences you want in life. I’ve been trying to figure out how to balance flexibility, agility, freedom, following your heart and being in the moment with the structure that seems to help with focusing and getting stuff done.

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