Gold Standard: Not Enough to Set Goals; Set Standards
Posted: Friday, October 17, 2008
by Mogama
http://www.mogama.info
Any life coach or motivational speaker will urge you to set goals, if you are to succeed in any meaningful way in life. Someone said, "If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time."
The significance of setting goals has been pounded by various writers. Let me quote two of them.
Denis E. Watley, author of The Psychology of Success (Ten Proven Principles for Winning): "The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them."
That writer sees life or any undertaking as a journey to a destination. If life is a journey, then clear goals become the road map that guides the way.
Robert Heinlein, the late American science and fiction author: "In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it."
How serious it must be to set goals! Heinlein is saying, 'Either set clear goals or your life becomes a trivial pursuit. Either set goals or live like a slave!'
But while setting goals may be sufficient for anybody, goal setting alone is never enough for a leader. That according to leadership guru, Dr. John Maxwell, who declares, "Leaders don't just set goals, they set standards."
When you set goals, you determine quantity, how much you will do, how far you will go in a given time frame. Here is a statement of goal: "Write one article per day for SearchWarp." You've got your goal. So how is that different from a standard?
When you set standards, you determine quality, how well you will do something, or what you will become in the process of achieving something. The standards you set will measure the goals you reach. Consider standards your QA (Quality Control) tool. Standards add a layer of quality to your goals. Here is a statement of standard: "Write one SearchWarp article this week that has no misspelled words and no grammatical errors."
The wording of the above statement may be kind of bulky, but you get the point. That standard statement tells you that it is not enough to write so many articles per day or per week, but that each article you write must be of high quality so it can benefit your readers. You've set a standard for writing that will make you a BETTER writer, not just a fast writer.
How do goals and standards complement and strengthen one another for a more fulfilling life?
I have already pointed out that you use standards to evaluate your goals. When you are a leader, the standards you set for your group will develop character for everyone involved in reaching the goals of the group. Without standards, you may reach your goals, but you and your people may remain shallow and superficial. Goals are a sign of distance; they tell how far you've come. But standards are a sign of depth; they indicate how well or how strong you've grown. Goals emphasize what you do; standards highlight who you are, or who you are becoming, hopefully a better, more mature you.
Do you know of high achievers who have low standards? You could probably name a politician, an athlete, an actress, a singer, a doctor, a lawyer, or a clergyman in answer to that question. If so, you are looking at someone who set goals but failed to set standards of performance, standards of behavior, standards of conduct.
Why would you want to succeed in your public life or in your career but fail in your private or personal life? Why not succeed in both arenas? Standards of excellence: that's how you succeed in both your career AND your character.
In reaching your goals, you should never settle for anything less than the excellence that comes with setting high standards for yourself, if for no one else. Goals plus standards equal excellence. You could call this concept your "gold standard", or better yet, your "goal standard".
Standard. Never set a goal without it.
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Mogama, I think we tend to assume things which isn't always safe. When they are spelled out for us, it leaves no room for misunderstanding. You've done that in this article. One would think it's a given to set high standards when goal setting because as you've shared, just setting goals aren't enough. A very informative, beneficial and easy to understand article. Thank you.You're right, Avis. For the longest time I put all the emphasis on setting clear, measurable goals. Then I discovered that, though I was meeting most of my goals, I was not growing personally as I thought. That was when the need for setting standards dawned on me. These days I never establish a goal without also laying down a standard for that goal. Thanks for your comments. ~mogama~
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