ASk HN: Do you set life goals, 3/5 year plans?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1854345

by coryl • 16 years ago

36 32 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi guys,

Curious to know if anyone sets goals of places you'd like to be, several years in advance. Many companies make their employees write and define their career goals, I was wondering if any entrepreneurs/hacker/startup guys do the same thing and write out goals of where they want to be in several years.

Do they work? Does anyone actually follow and attempt to achieve their goals? Or is life too chaotic and the industry changes too fast to have realistic goals?

HerraBRE• 16 years ago

I set myself such goals a few years back, at the behest of my employer.

As soon as I had quit that job and found something to do that I actually enjoyed, I stopped bothering... :-P

Mostly kidding.

Turns out, the thing I decided to do (start my own company with a heavy open-source emphasis, building something I hope will prove to be useful) was actually perfectly in line with the professional goals I had set myself, so I'm not sure it was exactly a wasted exercise.

Short-term plans can be somewhat detailed, but long-term plans should be vague enough to leave you plenty of room to adapt - for me the point of such plans is to provide some "rules of thumb" or rough guidelines when making big decisions.

Stuff (life) will happen no matter what plans you make, but there are lots of little choices to be made and if you've spent some time thinking about what you want to achieve long-term, that can make hard decisions just a tiny bit easier.

Whether it "works" or not is impossible to say, ask again in 30 years. :-)

corin_• 16 years ago

I have life goals but not 3/5 year plans - more just where I want to end up.

edw519• 16 years ago

I once asked my mother what her New Year's resolution was and she responded, "To be around to make a New Year's resolution next year."

Ever since, that's pretty much summed it up for me.

qq66• 16 years ago

I agree that survival is of the highest importance, but it's good to also formulate goals beyond just being alive.

codyguy• 16 years ago

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - some wise guy

Janteh• 16 years ago

-John Lennon

One of my favorite quotes, btw.

RiderOfGiraffes• 16 years ago

No plan survives contact with the enemy -- Field Marshall Helmuth Karl Bernard von Moltke

I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. -- John Lennon

eru• 16 years ago

Von Moltke also agreed with the second sentiment.

bluedevil2k• 16 years ago

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face - Mike Tyson

billswift• 16 years ago

"And then you've got to bang your head on the problem for years, without being distracted by the temptations of easier living. "Life is what happens while we are making other plans," as the saying goes, and if you want to fulfill your other plans, you've often got to be ready to turn down life."

Eliezer Yudkowsky - http://lesswrong.com/lw/qs/einsteins_superpowers/

TamDenholm• 16 years ago

I find fault in actually planning something 3/5 years in advance. It almost never happens, stuff you dont foresee comes up, its pointless to have a 3/5 year plan.

Personally i try to only plan my next 24 hours. I have goals in my life but they're not restrained to a specific timeline. The best thing to do is to get yourself in as good a position as you can be to execute a goal you have, then go for it.

larsberg• 16 years ago

I find life goals and 3/5 year plans much more useful to me than the shorter-term 1-6 month goals. For example, "Go get your Ph.D." or "build a company with N employees" are longer-term goals and, more importantly, not the kind of thing you are likely to happen into either in the absence of any planning or with the tunnel-vision goal planning usually employed in your workplace or by many of the GTD folks I meet (other would of course would reply,"they're doing it wrong").

aneesh• 16 years ago

It makes sense to have both short and long-term plans. You should have 3 year plans not because you'll actually follow them to the letter, but because it'll make you think about where you want to be in 3 years.

"Plans are useless but planning is indispensable." --Dwight Eisenhower

Tzeentch99• 16 years ago

My company makes employees set goals like you are referring to yearly but they are pretty much BS and everyone knows it.

However, I do set personal goals for each year around Christmas time. These aren't necessarily around work but areas in life I want to improve on or make some sort of progress in. These aren't new years resolutions like everyone makes but then makes no effort to achieve.

I usually do 5 to 6 a year and my goals are written out and most importantly quantitatively measurable. At the same time, before the new year I sketch out a rough timeline (again in writing) of each portion of each goal, what I need to achieve it, step by step etc. This has proven amazingly effectively over the past 3 years, getting me off my ass and accomplishing things that most people put off continually.

For example, one of my goals this year was to start a side business in x field with at least y amount of revenue in 2010. I did this successfully and learned a ton of stuff about starting a business, dealing with accountants, lawyers, business law, etc. Even better its already profitable.

To take an example of most common New Year's goal, go to the gym more and lose weight. Yeh, that is ill defined and the person will give up after gym visit 3.

The way I would phrase this one is along the lines of the specific outcomes I want. I mean you go to the gym as a means to an end, not to an end in of itself. So I would say my goal in 2011 is to lose 20 pounds, up my bench press by 30 lbs, and be able to run a 10 min mile for example. Then I would timeline this out (leaving it open for adjustments since shit happens and you want to experiment) such as by June 1, 2011 have lost 10 lbs, be able to do a 13 min mile etc.

Basically these have really helped me out and I'm already planning my goals for next year.

dbz• 16 years ago

I am probably cheating, but:

(I'm 18 now) 1. Finish Senior Year 2. (College) Dual Major in CompSi and EE 5/2. Grad school if I have patience 3. Experience working for companies like Google, Nvidia, Intel, ect. 4. Start a (successful) startup

Annnnnd that's where I want to be in several years- well that's quite a bit more than five year, but it's where I want to be.

I know that some of those goals are clearly accomplish-able, and I'll be happy to answer any questions on if I think the others are likely. As for me- I've been programming for several years, and I've known what I want to do for quite a while.

weaksauce2• 16 years ago

Not tech/startup/business related but I just made it a goal to climb the nose of El Capitan in 5 years.

zachallaun2• 16 years ago

I spent a summer in Utah and Wyoming a couple years back climbing in various spots, and have been pretty addicted to it ever since. Needless to say, I can definitely appreciate that goal!

weaksauce2• 16 years ago

Yeah I have a ways to go but a good amount of time to get there. If you aid the harder parts of it then it's not insurmountable. It's really getting over the 3000' of air below you, coming to terms with sleeping on the side of a sheer cliff, and pushing on huge pieces of granite that are not attached to the wall anymore(see texas flake).

Gonna be fun though. It is amazing how addicting climbing is though.

fliph• 16 years ago

Certainly; I've had good success so far in life with long-term goals.

Achieved:

* Graduate college in three years.

* Get a job in the tech sector that I enjoy.

* Marry the girl I love.

In-progress:

* Pay off my house in the next three years.

* Buy a large parcel of land (50+ acres) where my wife and I can build our dream house.

Still to be determined:

* Retire by 35 so I can spend my time on my terms.

There's nothing like the feeling of setting a big goal and eventually checking it off your list.

adebelov• 16 years ago

I would create a vision of who and where I would want to be in 5 years, however I would focus on the next few months on creating solid goals and plan on achieving them.

I believe goals are powerful as they do help you set a target for where and who you want to become. But you really need a good plan on achieving those goals, because without a solid route it's harder to get from point A to point B.

fifteen3• 16 years ago

Achieving something by accident feels like failure in comparison to achieving something on purpose.

A sense of purpose is integral to your sense of worth, your self-esteem and fuels your ambition.

Goals are useless if you don't have any ambition. Ambition is absent when you have no goals.

You should never measure yourself with someone else's measuring stick. You should always establish your own measuring stick. So that you will always know what you have achieved and what you believe is success.

Leaving yourself open to being measured by others is an invitation to be controlled by others. Once you give up that control, you will never be happy with the direction they push you. You will never truly believe in what you do and you will lose your sense of purpose and feel like a puppet.

People who say their don't believe in goals are lying or aimlessly floating through life achieving nothing.

A goal is not a plan, it is an end result. A successful person will constantly assess and alter their plan to meet their goal.

Sometimes setting a goal is the quickest way to find out you aren't really interested in that goal and you are lead to what your really believe to be important.

NonOrthodox• 16 years ago

Since I was a kid I have been thinking of what is my mission here on Earth. Today I got a pretty good idea of what I want to do in this world, so after I've decided that, I have now been struggling to set goals in the short/mid/long term till I reach that ultimate goal.

One might say plans are useless, but that isn't true. I find myself changing them from time to time, but they are the best tool I have to manage my time and life and check on my progress to reach the dream I have.

All I do is keep checking on them and constantly thinking if they need change or what progress I am having. Everyday I spend at least a few minutes reflecting on them.

This is a good example of goals: http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=84

projectileboy• 16 years ago

I've done annual "chartering sessions" with my wife, where we write down values and goals, and what things we need to do to realize those goals while sticking to our values. Of course we don't follow our plans exactly, because life usually gets a good laugh out of our plans. But the annual sessions are a great way to make sure we're still the couple we want to be, living the life we want to live.

dustyreagan• 16 years ago

I constantly consider and rework my goals and life strategy. I even keep my highest level goals on my website: http://dustyreagan.com/goals

dpcan• 16 years ago

Yes, and I change them ALL THE TIME. But I see this as a really good thing. I find life is easier when I know where I'm going, and I don't mind so much if it's in the wrong direction.

acconrad• 16 years ago

I find that the goals I set for the furthest time in the future are the goals I'm most determined to complete. So for me, the further you set a goal, the more likely it will come true.

pmichaud• 16 years ago

I use Goal Mapping:

http://www.petermichaud.com/essays/stop-planning-right-start...

http://www.petermichaud.com/software/goal-mapping-alpha/comm...

_b8r0• 16 years ago

I have personal goals. I want to have all of my personal startup debt paid off by the end of next year (as I absorbed a lot initially and didn't pay it off when I should've, more fool me). I want to start paying off heavy chunks of my mortgage immediately afterwards. I'd like to fork() in the next year or two. I want to lose at least another 8 kilos before the end of the year.

I used to spend ages working on my business plan, updating it and so on. It was about 30 pages at one point. Then I realised that actually it was all fiction, except for that which already happened. So instead of planning I have a general idea of what we're doing and where we're going for the next quarter, six months and year in less detail the further you get out, and I use the information we get from sales, customer feedback and other areas to tweak the outline plan. There are no figures in the outline plan. They're worthless.

aprilholle• 16 years ago

I am an AVID goal setter. I personally use a service called 43things.com that allows you to add your life goals, prioritize them and get advice from people who have completed the goals you want to accomplish. :)

Good luck in creating the life you want to live.

- Apps

grillmaster• 16 years ago

The last 5 year plan i made is to creating my own religion and currently i'm down to last year. It take a tonne of research to pull it off in the allocated time but somewhat doable. Since, my interests have gone off tangent the goal i set 4 years ago hardly matters. Now i'm hoping to get my startup realised and hopefully get taken in by the next few cycles. In a way setting goal(s) never work for me because i'll always look to something else to lust over. The only goal that's been consistent so far is to marry a supermodel.

gaoshan• 16 years ago

I find that such goals, for me, don't work. I make daily and weekly goals (sometimes monthly) as that is about as far out as I can realistically plan. Anything much longer and I'm just fooling myself (and it has taken me a couple of decades to realize this).

Now, I am not an especially organized or focused person. My wife, who is laser focused and organized as precisely as the layout of a microchip, can make such longer term plans. I'm usually just pleased to have remembered to hit the bathroom far enough in advance of my noon meeting that I am not late for it and not left squirming in my chair halfway through (I'm serious).

ASk HN: Do you set life goals, 3/5 year plans?

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