Goal setting is not about “setting a lofty goal”; it is about breaking the goal down into steps small enough to execute.
Raymond’s interpretation (Wisdom)
Five years ago, at the beginning of each year, Raymond enthusiastically listed a pile of goals, only to have forgotten most of them by March. He later understood that the problem was not a lack of willpower but a fundamentally wrong way of setting goals.
Most people’s goals come from other people’s success stories, not the real needs of their own lives. Someone with no reading habit sets “one book a week,” or someone who commutes in the morning expects to go jogging at 5:30—goals detached from personal context are bound to fail.
Good goal setting must connect with past experience and motivation. Annual goals are too distant and easy to lose focus on; a 12-week plan is just right—close enough to create pressure, long enough to do something meaningful. Combine it with OKRs to break a vision down into measurable key results, then use problem analysis to identify controllable factors, and goals can truly be put into practice.
Goal setting and review are two sides of one process: one faces the future, the other looks back at the past. Goal setting without review is only wish-making.
Strategy and method (Knowledge)
OKR framework
A method of breaking down goals using Objectives + Key Results. Set a vision-level objective and key results based on problem analysis, so a goal shifts from the vague “I want to get better” to concrete, measurable action indicators.
12-week plan
Treat a year as 12 weeks (Brian Moran’s The 12 Week Year). Shortening the planning cycle maintains focus and urgency, makes regular review and adjustment easier, and prevents distant annual goals from draining motivation. Conduct a full review every 12 weeks to check whether methods are effective and adjust strategy.
Source: Brian Moran’s The 12 Week Year + OKRs, interpreted for Raymond’s own use
Related content (Information)
Course scripts
- 23 | Effective Review (Part 2): How Should Goals Really Be Set? (OKRs + 12-week plan)
Articles and newsletters
- 2021-06-15_How to Use Notion to Build Your OKR Goal Management System
- 2021-06-15_How to Use OKRs Well: A Practical Example for Learning Task Breakdown and Goal Management
- 2021-06-15_Understanding the Difference Between OKRs and KPIs: How Goal Management Can Help Companies Communicate Effectively
- 2023-01-01_Thomas Frank’s Five Principles for Consistent Creation: The Impossible List
- 2020-03-02_S01E01_How to Choose a Career: The Self-Goal-Path Model
- 2023-10-10_How to Follow Trends to Build a Service or Product of Your Own: A Look at These Supervisors Making Over 400,000 a Month
- 2023-05-16_The Mechanism Behind Ten Years of Writing by the Computer Play Blogger: Relaxing Outside Work, Projectizing Life, Atlas of Digital Life #19, Interview with Esor