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The Personal MBA

Master the Art of Business

2nd Edition, Revised & Expanded

This is a preview of a key idea from The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman. Order your copy now...

Goals

“Setting a vague goal is like walking into a restaurant and saying, “I’m hungry. I want some food.” You’ll stay hungry until you order something." — Steve Pavlina, author of Personal Development for Smart People and blogger at stevepavlina.com

Key Ideas:

• A Goal is a statement that describes precisely what you want to achieve.
• Goals are more useful if they are Framed in a Positive, Immediate, Concrete and Specific (PICS) format:
  
  
  
  • Positive: your goal should be something you move toward, not away from.
  • Immediate: your goals should be something that you decide to make progress on now, not “someday.”
  • Concrete: it means that you’re able to see results in the real world. Achieve “happiness” is not a concrete goal.
  • Specific: you have to define what, when and where you are going to achieve your goal.
• Your goals should be under your control, like “doing exercise” instead of “losing 20 pounds.”
• It’s ok to change your goals if you no longer feel good about them.

Questions for Consideration:

• What’s your desired end state? Have you defined a destination that your brain can use to plan what to do next?
• If you haven’t, can you set an arbitrary end state for now, leaving yourself open to course-correction as you progress?

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