Goal setting process - objectively

First impressions are promising. You can dive right in into "Learning" a goal, which is the Goalbot equivalent of setting said goal. You can choose from one of the popular goals or enter your own. If your goal is one of the popular ones (like "Lose weight" or "Start my own business") you will have a summary page that gives you some information about how to achieve it. The software will also present you with resources (books, websites, related goals) that will help you get more information and get you on your way.

The next step: "Plan" allows you to define steps for your goal. Each step can have a due date (or repeating schedule). If you want more options for planning - you picked the wrong service. Steps and due dates are all that Goalbot has to offer in this department.

The next section might very well be the distinguishing characteristic of Goalbot - the "Connect" section allows to share ones progress (in Twitter-like fashion), look for or ask questions regarding the goal and connect with other people with similar goals. Now isn't that fun?

The last part - the "Coach" section allows you to search for mentors that you can pay to help you with your goal. Just type in your goal and your location and you're set - if you're living in the right place and have a sufficiently standard goal that is.

Those were the facts - how does all this work put together?

Impressions

The basic assumption behind all social powered services is that there is someone that shares our interests and tastes. In this case this idea seems just a tad too far fetched for me. If your goal is non standard, Goalbot will just be a dead simple goal and step organizer with no particular advantages over pen and paper.

I also took the time to trace through how helpful would Goalbot be in the standard goal category. These would include the goals that you probably considered doing at one time or another. These would include:

• Lose Weight
• Start a Business
• Reduce my caloric intake
• Create an exercise plan
• Drink more water

The problem is - those goals already have vast amounts of attention from other media. There are numerous sites that address each of these issues in depth. Why then would I want to use the information and tools that GoalBot has to offer to "Lose weight", when there are terrific community websites loaded with tools (SparkPeople to name just one).

My first impression about Goalbot was that the most valuable tools would be the goal research stage, but when I wanted something less standard than weight loss, the results were pretty disappointing. Why would I want to replace my search engine with Goalbot? I can't think of a reason.

In my view, the only chance for Goalbot is to cover as much topics as possible and add resources, so it becomes sort a hub for goal setting research - but it would have to be really complex and good for me to replace the search engine.

Having said all that about the general concept of the service I would like to point out that, as a software developer, I really think the website is really well done. The interface is very intuitive and much work has been put in to not bug the user with anything superfluous. At the same time, all the features are neatly packed into spaces that they need to be (appearing when hovering over a linked item for example). In overall - the technical side of GoalBot is some fine programming and interface design woven into a user-friendly piece of software.

Web-sociopath disclaimer

It has to be stated here that I am probably not the target audience for Goalbot - I have yet to be motivated into following through with any goal by a Web-based social group. I do value the accountability boost and support that comes from my friends and family, but that's it. Therefore, the most distinguishing feature of Goalbot is pretty much useless to me - your experience may vary and you may want to give Goalbot a try - it doesn't cost you anything but a bit of time.

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I've been interested in self-help and personal achievement for about a decade now, an I enjoy giving advice to those of my friends who want to accomplish something. By trying to help them I often realize my own shortcomings in some areas. This is a story of one the most insidious and prevalent ones.

Coaching someone (including yourself) into doing something will probably get you a lot of resistance if you did not prepare for the process appropriately. You might know that change requires you to have a lot of reasons to beat the status quo and that these should include both the positive (what will I gain by doing X) and negative (what will I lose if I don't do it).

You might also be aware that a new goal will be made a lot easier by destroying the beliefs that you have that are not supporting the new goal and creating some that will.

Now this is where most of the resistance will emerge with two possible scenarios:

• Your friend doesn't have the ability to distinguish between belief and fact. This can be diagnosed by the quizzical look when you ask a question like "What opinions do you have in this area that might be relevant to this goal"?. Obviously - the questions will be based on the goal, but the look should be easy to spot. This situation is quite troublesome and this post is not designed to help you.

• Your friend (or you) is hesitant to destroy the beliefs and install some new ones because "That's just not me".

The second is quite the conundrum and it really pains me to write about it, remembering that I've been trapped in that cage for so many years.

Just be yourself

What does that even mean? It's one of those sayings that can be broken down into a subset of expectations that are placed upon your actions. Those might include:

• Do not think, act or say anything that might be inconsistent with what you already did in the past.

• Do not let anyone influence you in any way (for that would greatly contaminate the "yourselfness").

Even when you ignore the obvious paradox that these rules are actually controlling you and limiting your freedom - they make absolutely no sense. They imply that at one moment, your personality formed totally from scratch, and should never change. If you look back at your life and find this to be true - write a book - I would be fascinated by such a tale. Most of us however can identify with the long process of learning and changing - looking back at all the stupid stuff we did and now now we are all the wiser because of it.

Why are we lying to ourselves?

The answer is so simple I was almost embarrassed when I realized it - I am afraid of change. All the lessons I have learned came at a price of pain - the time taken, the emotional costs... and so on.

The brain is a powerful organ, but it is hard-wired to evade pain. By doing something new we take the risk in order to grow.

This is a hard thing to accept, so we create a belief that at one time the things we want will just come to us, with no effort on our part. This is a lie and deep down we all know it.

The situation in our life is (more often than not) created by who we are and what we believe in. The people that win come into possession of wealth with no effort usually lose all of after 1-3 years. If we want to get somewhere - we have to become the person that would be there.

How to overcome this egocentric mentality

Recognize the fluidity of your being - embrace it. More adequately - come to terms that your beliefs of "being yourself" are an elaborate form of self deception that will cause you nothing but pain if you do not change them.

Embrace change as the powerful force driving all life and realize that stability is an illusion marketed to you by people who want to sell you something, or can benefit from you staying in your comfort zone.
Looking at this from an evolutionary perspective - those who risk survive - those who innovate and create change lift humanity up.

Subtle mindhack to avoid the trap:

Think in terms of who you want to become, not what you want to accomplish or what you want to posses - this subtle change of perspective will accustom you to the idea of changing yourself and not passively waiting for something to come to you.

It also jumps the aforementioned self-image hurdle up front and leaves you with a far superior mindset.

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Have you ever felt your brain rewire? This sore muscle that you can't quite place, but you know something is happening? This is how I've felt throughout my trip. Snowboarding is a demanding feat for the brain to get accustomed to - you force your body into using muscles and catching balance in ways that you never did before. The brain and nervous system are trying to make sense of it all.

You kind of feel the inner voice telling you "I don't know why you chose to tie yourself to a wooden board and go downhill, but I'll do the best I can to help you with that".

Snowboarding is just one of the great things you can do to keep your brain entertained and is quite extreme. You'll get similar results just by switching hands, walking in the dark or trying to draw music. Whatever you do - don't leave it up to chance - plan for what you are going to do right now. Put it on your to-do list and stick with it.  If you're not quite clear what you can do to start, "Keep Your Brain Alive!" is a great start.

Now go and freak out.

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This is the time (day? week?) of year when most people take a brief look at their lives, form a sentence that is supposed to destroy whatever vice that first popped into mind, and go on with their lives as usual. If you're like that - I will not be able to help you.  If however you're more serious about your resolution - read on.

I used to think that a statement such as "I will jog for 60 minutes every other day by the end of February" is a goal. This statements adheres to the S.M.A.R.T. guidelines, but it has several flaws:

• It doesn't recognize the need to achieve goal incrementally - starting small and building momentum to achieve ultimate effect. This can be fixed by phrasing the goal like "I jog every other day, increasing the time by 2 minutes daily and ultimately running 60 minutes by the end of February".
• It doesn't really convey any benefits (on it's own). If someone were ignorant of the health benefits of jogging, this single statement would not mean anything. If we want to be motivated to do something we must keep the benefits constantly in mind - a goal like the above might be hard to accomplish because we tend to loose track of the ultimate reasons for achieving the goal (the desired end result).
• It would be hard for me to integrate this into my self-image.
• Why are you jogging? To get fit? To get strong? Increase stamina? Lose weight?
• What if jogging doesn't work out? You could develop knee problems, be attacked by dogs on a regular basis or having a really uninteresting neighbor join you. What then - do you drop the whole goal and quit?

All of these are result of mistaking actions for goals.

• A goal is an end state in which your life changed in a desirable way, consistent with your self image.
• A goal is achieved by setting up:
  • reasons (why do I want this),
  • an action plan (how will I achieve this).

The immediate practical applications could be:

• Suppose we change
  "I jog every other day, increasing the time by 2 minutes daily and ultimately running 60 minutes by the end of February"
  to:
  "I am fit enough to allow me to jog for 60 minutes by the end of February"
  
• If something happens to disrupt your jogging schedule, you can work on your fitness levels in other ways. Also - you will be less likely to get bored this way because you are not limited to jogging.
• Maybe you will find a better way to get fit if you gain more knowledge about fitness in general. You can experiment with different training programs and measure which one works best for you.
• "I am fit and full of energy" seems to fit  better into my self image than just being a jogger.

Change actions to goals

This is a fairly easy process:

1. If your resolution is an action, look for the ultimate goal, write it down. The previous action will become part of your action plan.
   or
   If your resolution is already a goal (losing weight for example) don't do anything with it yet (maybe phrase it to be SMART)
2. List all the reasons for achieving the goal. This should be two lists: 10 benefits of achieving your goal and 10 painful consequences of not reaching it. This step is really important - ever since I started to integrate a list of reasons into my goal setting routine I've achieved far more than without them. The key is to really feel into the good (and bad) feelings that these hypothetical situations elicit.
3. Get some knowledge about the subject in question and formulate an action plan. Your first item might be already there.
4. Have daily habits to track the actions, revisit goals and action plans. Change them according to results. You may find a low tech way to keep track of goals in my previous post.

Do you have examples of transformed resolutions or other ways to better them? Let me know in the comments.

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• Knowledge - I knew enough about exercise but lacked the essential knowledge regarding energy balance and nutrition. This made my plan effective in terms of increasing overall health (which was quite satisfying), but did not lead to weight loss.
• A plan with (easily) measurable daily actions.

Improving the plan goal achievement process involved the following:

• Reading somewhat about it. Since weight loss is a limitless sesspool in desinformation, I skimmed throught a few books and sticked to those that made sense and did not promise to make me lose 5 kgs overnight. I stuck with "The body fat solution", by Tim Venuto. Also - I got some great mantra type articles from ZenHabits: example.
• I've already had a measurable goal, but I did not set up a plan for the measurements and alas - they failed. Armed with that knowledge I framed the simplest measurement schedule I could think of:
  • Phase 1 (first 21 days). Using a pocket notepad and pen.
    • Write down everything I eat with the amounts
    • Weight myself in the evening.
    • If doing any exercises, write them down.
  • Phase 2. All the data went into a database for progress measurement.
    • Count daily calorie intake and protein percentages of the foods
    • Weight myself at least once a day (preferably in the morning and in the evening)
    • Make an exercise plan and follow it.

I started simple and a month later am still building my way up. This is the natural progress of the goal measuring process. Begin with lo-tech low maintenance logging tools. This may even be all you need. I am currently on my way of building my own custom weight and calorie tracker (built for my specific needs), but mainly as a means to improving my programming skills.

The effect is that the goal of losing 1kg/week is steadily coming along, and I have full control over all of the variables, which is very gratifying.

Because I have some spare time and some goals, I'm going to resume testing goal setting software suites for those of you that do not have the luxury or the ability to write your own app Stay tuned.

Related posts:

1. The difference between goals and action plans The flaws of some NY resolutions This is the time...

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• ANY reasonable goal setting system will work
  Yes - the mere fact that you are actually setting goals and giving them some sort of attention will secure a reasonable amount of success - my aim is to find out which of these work best.
• the optimal goal setting system is dependent on our desired end result
  Example: the goal of "achieving a weight of xx kgs" and one which has an end result of "thinking positive thoughts" will require different exercises and different trains of thought.
• the personality of the goal setter is a major factor
  Some people are motivated more by pleasure, some by pain. It is up to the goal software to find out which is better for the particular person to maximise the effects of goal setting.

These varying factors is why I personally use several goal setting systems (and variations) including but not limited to:

• Techniques of Raymond Hull
• Techniques of Tony Robbins
  
• Concepts taught by David Allen (in particular the 6 levels of focus)
• various visualization systems of esoteric orders

It is also why the ideal goal software should take some time to get to know it's user and adjust his goal systems accordingly. Ultimately the user could pick the methodology of his choosing (with appropriate help of course and maybe suggestions based on the choice of other users) to every goal he wishes to work on.

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Some software systems will tell you that they are accessible any time, provided you carry your personal laptop anywhere with you, and that's a bit of a stretch. Others will provide you with portable software ready to be put on your USB drive. That's a bit better but not good enough for me - goal setting software must be able to provide you with the ability to store data online and access them with anything that can display a web page. Bonus points if you have offline access.

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In other news:

• The best daily goal setting system ever is working out to be great for everday work. However, I am still putting together a system for a more strategic approach to goals that can be done on a weekend. I'll try to have this finished as soon as possible but my thesis deadline is closing fast. Anyway - it you haven't tried the system yet - give it a go. It's just a few minutes daily.
• The next few posts are going to be a return the the goal software 101 series, sprinkled with some helpful chunks of general goal setting information.

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The search

I found this piece of software while scouting the market of commercial products. The first thing that I saw was this advertising page [AL]. The first thing that came to mind was "This guy really knows about internet marketing". I mean - I found every selling technique I've ever heard of and then some (and I'm a certified NLP Master). Don't get me wrong - I think it's a good thing for people to know their trade. If someone takes the effort to learn something, AND applies the knowledge - the more confident I am he will do a good job with whatever he touches.

The other thing that convinced me into buying this piece of software was Brad Isaac's blog. It's full of golden goal setting information. I reckoned that if this guy knows that much - the software must have something to offer.

The last thing of notice is somewhat related to the marketing - the software is not available for a free trial - you do however get a 60 day period in which you can request a full refund, and then some. This is the modern lose-win approach. It requires you to give cash up front - but if you are unsatisfied, you can get a full refund and you get to keep some of the bonus goodies that you get along with the software.

The buy

Nothing special here - I paid with PayPal via ClickBank. Swift, easy and comfortable. Just a reminder - there are taxes. The $39 for the software grows to $47.58 after tax, but you probably got used to some government robbing you by now, right?

The first encounter

When you open the program, you are greeted with some motivational quotes (there seems to be quite a lot of them) from various sources (great thinkers, proverbs, motivational speakers). The next thing you will probably notice is the interesting and unique software interface - quite pleasing to the eye and very intuitive - all of the major function are one click away.

The program is divided into action areas:

• Brainstorm
  This is where the built in wizard will make you set goals for a year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and after.
• Manage
  Here you can well... manage your goals - move up, delete, set completed, change category - you get the idea.
• Refine
  You can do two additional things to your goal: enter the benefits of achieving the goal and the possible pitfalls when working on it
• Plan
  It is here where you set the end date of your goal. Also - you can export to MS Outlook Calendar and MS Outlook task list. This part is also where the best feature of the software IMO is situated - the "Motivate Me" feature.
• Refine
  This allows for additional setting of steps, which is pretty basic (and won't be covered in this review)

Brainstorm, Manage, Refine

When I saw these 3 options, I was thrilled to see one of my favourite problem solving methods. It's not even a specific method - just the assumption that your mind should not be bounded by "rational" thinking when coming up with ideas. The brainstorming comes first, then the other hemiphere comes in to refine and judge.

This is exactly what we are going to do. You first brainstorm your ideas for predefined timespans (1,5,10 years, lifetime). Next you list your benefits of achieving this goal and the possible pitfalls.

I've been thinking and attempting goal setting systems for some time now and I know that it is hard to keep something simple enough to be easy to use and comprehend, but have sufficient features to power your goals. Achieve-IT! goes for simplicity, which for me is a bit too scarce.

I have found that getting a big enough reason often equals coming up with a solution. Thus my systems require the user to list specific benefits and guide them through it. This still can be done in this software - it just takes a bit more user knowledge.

The pitfalls - nice to see that people in the self-help business are going out of the covering eye technique in avoiding possible failures. As the software states:

"If you know the pitfalls in advance, dealing with them will be a breeze"

I agree. On one condition - have a ready counteraction or state. Practise them in your mind. I you are trying to  quit smoking, the mere knowledge you will be tempted is not enough - you will have to have a pre-set plan that has been practised and conditioned.

Overall - decent set of features in this part.

Plan

This is the most exciting part of the software for me. Why? It fulfils one of my desired traits in a goal setting system. It gives you the choice of Outlook and GCalendar to work with. You can then export to a calendar or (in the case of Outlook) to a task list.

I have not tried the features related to MS Outlook as I... don't find it an appealing peace of software. The option of Google Calendar however was to my liking. As first - I couldn't find it. The help system did not live up to its name and I wrote to support. The solutions is a bit tricky because you have to enter the options screen, check an option, and press the Export to Outlook Calendar button. Not very intuitive, isn't it?

And  now my favourite function - the Motivate Me feature. It is a daily reminder about one specific goal, that is not just a reminder, but rather a quick tip on how can you visualize your goal. An example would be:

"Decide now what can you do today to make sure that you achieve your goal, (enter goal here), by (goal completion date here) and feel pleasure achieving it"

This is one of the more simple examples, others were very diverse and quite appealing. What's even better the integration with GCal allows you to get your motivation by SMS and read it in some leisure time - you do not have to be near your computer.

The feature allows you to set a specified hour, and it will insert reminders on a random time within a 3 hour range of the chosen time (random for the purpose of not getting too used too it). I would think the 3 hour timespan should be configured by the user, but maybe the author wanted to ensure that particular timespan.

Unfortunately there are some problems when using the feature on GCal. When I first used it, the apllication froze - and I found myself with duplicate reminders for each day. I already wrote about it to the author so he could resolve it. It probably it not an issue when using short term goals (mine was for a year later).

Overall - this is the best feature in the program, but it has it's flaws and space for improvement.

The verdict

After about 3 weeks with the software, working every 3rd day with it, I decided to ask for my money back. The reasons to why have been summarized in the cons/pros list at the end of the article. The motivate me feature - once I got used to it - was the only thing that I wanted, but being a software developer and wanting to work with the Google API for quite some time, I decided that I would write my own piece of software fitting my needs.

The bright part of all this is that I can also review the return process The return was uneventful, quick, professional and no questions asked. The total time was about 5 days, so there is no risk in buying it.

All in all - there is no risk to this transaction - you might want to try it and see if it fits your needs. If you would like to try the software and support this page click this link.

Cons:

• interface sometimes can 'lose' values
• misleading interface in the case of Google Calendar integration
• bugs in GCalc export
• rigid GCal export rules
• requires knowledge of goal setting from the user

Pros

• Simple
• Motivate Me feature
• Good support
• No risk trial
• Additional goodies that you can keep even after refund

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