I hope that you’ve been getting your shine on since last week.  This week we’ll continue to talk about goals and ask ourselves what appears to be a dumb question.  Do the goals you set motivate you?  I ask, because I’m often guilty of setting goals that don’t really motivate me, and I’d bet you do to.

Let’s look at a goal that many of us have when we start a new year, losing weight.  This is going to sound stupid, but I don’t’ really know what the numbers on the scale mean.  Obviously I’m overweight, and need to lose weight.  However, I can’t tell you if losing 15 pounds would make me feel any better or worse compared to losing 10 pounds.  The number doesn’t do anything for me.

This is about finding the goal, the dream that motivates you.  I want to feel stronger than I do right now.  I want to go through each day feeling like I’m constantly in beast mode/the zone/the flow or whatever you want to call that feeling.  That’s the thing that motivates me, so that’s what I’m going to shoot for.  I know in order to have this feeling on a consistent basis I need to take better care of myself.  I might use weight, waist size, etc. to track progress, but my goal is to consistently be in those flow moments.

Now let’s apply this to work.  It’s all about finding your thing.  What gets me going is not the same thing that gets you going, and that’s fine.  What goal motivates you?  In the course of this year I will have projects and things that I work on and will be measured against, but those are just a means to an end for me.  Here’s my dream for this role.  I want to weave a beautiful story that moves people and connects everything together in a meaningful way for them.  I want people to walk away with a greater sense of purpose, hope, engagement, and dedication as a result of some of the work I do and because of who I am.  I want them to take this greater sense of hope, purpose, and engagement and impact patients.  Now, I’m not sure how I work that into a myPM document, but if I could come close to that I would feel like a million bucks.

What is the goal you have that motivates you?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry