Having big goals and stating them proud

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2601-having-big-goals-and-stating-them-proud

by GVRV • 16 years ago

50 32 16 years ago

37signals.com

mrduncan• 16 years ago

Let's get this started - what's your big goal?

sahillavingia• 16 years ago

Waking up in the morning without a big goal. :)

msg• 16 years ago

In other words nirvana.

I prefer to wake up with a goal that is too big for one lifetime.

jordanroher2• 16 years ago

Putting Square Enix out of business.

dmix3• 16 years ago

That sounds like a big corporations goal, not a startups.

kilian• 16 years ago

...except that announcing your goals makes you less likely to follow through with them. This TED talk by Derek Sivers explains it far more eloquently than I could: http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...

dhh2• 16 years ago

Good pitch, I haven't personally found this to be true with the goals I've shared with other people. I get much more fired up to prove that I'm actually going to do it once it's out there. But obviously the science shows that might not be true for all.

zck• 16 years ago

It makes a difference that you're a polarizing person -- there will be people next week mocking you because 37signals isn't a $100million company yet, so you have more impetus to actually achieve it compared to a person who tells his or her friends, who will be supportive and forgetful of failures.

oscardelben• 16 years ago

I guess it depends on people. For me announcing goals make them a lot more likely to happen. Also, from what I remember about that TED video, the studies were not really convincing to me. Anyway, see what works for you, that's what's important.

hasenj2• 16 years ago

Didn't watch the video yet (I'm at work and no ear phones atm), but I think it depends on your personality type.

Announcing your goal might work for some people, probably the extroverted ones. For me I think it won't work.

Announcing my goals always drains my energy; I will have to argue with people and tell them how full of shit they are, and I have to listen to them ridiculing my ideas, etc. I just hate doing that.

xenophanes• 16 years ago

> announcing your goals makes you less likely to follow through with them

But people aren't probabilities. Our destiny is a matter of choices not random chance. So that doesn't really make sense.

lionhearted• 16 years ago

> ...except that announcing your goals makes you less likely to follow through with them.

Not exactly. I know that study, and I've seen that Sivers article/talk, and it's good.

The worst thing you can do for goal-setting is to casually talk about your goals like they're inevitable.

Public commitments do help motivate, though.

The best might be publicly committing while acknowledging that you're not there. When I talk about my goals, you'll often hear me say, "This is neurosis-inducing, because I'm behind schedule."

That, of course, leads to lower happiness levels and higher neurosis levels, but I get a lot more done than most people do.

I agree with Derek not to talk about your goals casually to other people. I think public commitments, especially emphasizing that you've still got a lot of work in front of you - I think doing it that way is a net gain.

hasenj2• 16 years ago

Well, after watching the video, I have two notes:

first, putting the ad after the video is a brilliant idea. :)

now about the talk, I don't believe in controlled psychological/sociological experiments very much, the real world is way too different from a room with 30 people working for one hour, the conclusions just don't scale to the real world.

In the real world, people don't generally accept your goals or congratulate you on them. Like if you tell someone that you want to quit your day job to start a startup, they would think you're crazy.

Also, in the real world, people will call it out on you if it doesn't look like you've achieved anything after a while.

thewordpainter• 16 years ago

i fully believe in quiet confidence as the best mentality. in fact, if you always under-promise & over-deliver, you can't go wrong ;)

dmix3• 16 years ago

> If we’re going to turn 37signals into a $100 million/year company

Posting generic self-help articles would be a good first step towards this goal.

dhh2• 16 years ago

You wouldn't believe the millions we bring in on free web articles. Or, I should say forecasted millions. They don't make any real money right now, but I'm sure we'll make it up on bulk!

dmix3• 16 years ago

I was being facetious about it being a serious business.

But I was serious about this post being straight out of a self-help book.

Although self-help has consistently been one of the top selling topics on Amazon, right below romance novels. So the former might have somes grounds as well.

edw519• 16 years ago

So what’s your big goal? Make it public and we’ll egg you on.

I'm going to buy the Pittsburgh Steelers and beat the New York Jets so badly that we'll make Gary Vaynerchuk sorry he ever made his big wish.

(Are you sure you want to egg me on?)

revorad• 16 years ago

Two of my favourite internet people head to head. Oh yeah bring it on!

umjames• 16 years ago

Any chance you want to buy the Philadelphia Eagles and turn them into a Super Bowl-winning franchise?

But seriously, does that mean you are actively working towards that goal now? Do you think you can realistically achieve it?

mjfern2• 16 years ago

Collins and Porras suggest companies should establish Big Hairy Audacious Goals: A BHAG is "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future...A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people—it reaches out and grabs them. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused."

A few examples of compelling BHAGs that guided and motivated people:

- John F. Kennedy's BHAG of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s

- Microsoft's BHAG of placing a PC on every desk in every home

- Google's BHAG of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful

cglee• 16 years ago

I think you left out the most important thing - a BHAG focuses money. It's a giant bet. SCO's BHAG is the lawsuit, Netscape's BHAG was the browser, Pets.com's BHAG was serving every pet - all bets that didn't pay off.

mjfern2• 16 years ago

Establishing a BHAG per se does not mean you've selected a good goal or that you will achieve the goal.

Eliezer• 16 years ago

It's always nice when someone starts a contest you've already won.

Kutta• 16 years ago

^I laughed out.

T_S_• 16 years ago

Underpromise, overdeliver.

gruseom• 16 years ago

I suppose "ly" is considered harmful as a suffix now too then?

hugh3• 16 years ago

Using adjectives as adverbs is apparently acceptable English in the dialect of the American South. I'm not sure why DHH is using it though.

Aetius• 16 years ago

This works, but only for natural extroverts, politicians, and DHH. For you, hacker, much better to keep a low profile until you've got something to announce.

Mc_Big_G• 16 years ago

Same goal I posted on the blog post: To steal the high-ticket classifieds market from craigslist and ebay.

farawaygarry• 16 years ago

I can see why stating one’s goal is a good starting point : it helps getting the right mindset to then actually work to achieve this goal. But in everything I've done, talking about something not achieved yet brings unneeded attention and stress, that one doesn’t need in his process of accomplishing something.

I'm not saying to hide while working on stuff, but I'm not sure making a lot of noise about it is helping the actual progress of the project.

Having big goals and stating them proud

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