Goal-Free Living: A Book Review & More

Goal-Free Living - what does that mean? Does it mean that we abandon all goals and just float through life like a leaf on a river, going wherever the current takes us?

This is the question I asked my colleague, Steve Shapiro, about a year ago upon the publication of his book, Goal-Free Living: How to Have the Life You Want NOW! (Stephen M. Shapiro, John Wiley & Sons, 2006). At the time, I was holding the autographed copy in my hands, but had not yet even read the dust jacket. When I got home, I looked it over quickly and then put it aside to read when I had time. Recently, I finally made that time and read the book cover-to-cover. And then I could not wait to tell my readers and clients about it.

As a Life/Work Coach, one of the things I do with clients is to work with them on setting realistic, achievable goals, then creating an Action Plan to accomplish those goals, and finally actually taking the actions needed to accomplish those goals. I approached this book wondering, Was this book proposing that people should live their lives without any goals? Or hinting that as a coach I should stop teaching goal-setting and action-planning techniques and strategies?

As it turns out, the answer is a qualified "No". Goal-Free Living is not about letting go of all goals. It's about having some goals but not being driven by them, not being "Goal-Focused" all the time. Goal-Free Living is about living in, and responding to, the moment, being fully engaged with the here and now, being tuned in to the opportunities that are constantly presenting themselves to us, if only we are open to receiving them.

In the author's own words, "Goal-Free Living is about listening to your gut, trusting that you are moving in the right direction, a direction that has meaning for you. You take risks and try new things. You play full out. Everything you do fits with your purpose."

Ah, here's the nub: knowing your purpose. Without knowing your purpose, or having some vision of a possible future, we would indeed drift.

And in addition to knowing your purpose, I would add, knowing yourself - your skills, talents, strengths, interests, personality style, cognitive style, values, dreams, wishes, aspirations and especially your overarching life purpose. And to this mix, I would also add identifying your passion - that thing, or things, that ignite(s) your energy, imagination, and drive - and letting these factors guide your journey through life.

Use a compass, not a map. This, Shapiro writes, is the first of his eight secrets for living a goal-free life. I interpret this secret, or guideline, to mean using your purpose, passion, and self-knowledge as Aspirations (Shapiro's term) or Mega-Goals (my term) - goals that set the tone or theme of your life. These become the Compass. A Map, in this context, would be a set of specific and detailed goals leading ultimately to fulfilling your purpose and vision in a specific, predetermined way.

For example, suppose your overriding life purpose was "to make a difference". This purpose would become the Compass of your life. And in all you do, making a difference would be the aspiration or mega-goal. Let's suppose, then, that you developed a very specific vision of how you would lead your life in response to that purpose. Perhaps you set a course for a career in health or politics or social justice, for example. And then, you created an action plan that led to to fulfilling that vision - a plan that perhaps contained very specific and focused action steps for reaching that goal. The Action Plan would become the Map.

The Goal-Focused approach would be to follow that Map with much intention, which would lead to achieving your very specific vision. The Goal-Free approach, on the other hand, would be to hold "making a difference" as your aspiration, or mega-goal, and then live your life in the present moment with your ear to the ground, open to all the possibilities you might encounter that would result in making a difference. This approach leaves you open to many more possibilities in terms of expressing and living your purpose, but also can create distraction, lack of focus, and confusion.

The way I look at it, there is value in each approach, and some people are more suited to one approach than the other. The Goal-Focused approach is a more logical, rational, analytical, step-by-step approach to creating a life. It is more suited to people who are primarily "left-brained" in their cognitive or personality style. The Goal-Free approach is a more creative, intuitive, multi-layered approach, and is more suited to those who are primarily "right-brained" in their cognitive or personality style. And, then, there is always the possibility of blending the two styles, or moving back and forth between them as the situation requires.

The author of Goal-Free Living shares eight secrets for living a Goal-Free life. So far, we have explored only one. What are the other seven secrets? Perhaps we will explore these in a future blog. Meanwhile, feel free to contact author Stephen Shapiro for the answer to that question or to order the book online through Amazon.com.

Meanwhile, what is your Compass? Your overriding life and/or work purpose? How might you use your purpose, your passion, and your unique gifts and talents as your compass in a goal-free life and change (improve) the quality of your life?

Plan To Be Surprised

Last evening I saw a delightful movie - the newly released Dan in Real Life. Dan Burns (superbly played by Steve Carell) is a widower and the father of three girls, ages 8 to 17. He is also the writer of a "Dear Dan" - type newspaper column in which he dispenses advice on relationships and family life - advice he doesn't always heed himself. I'll forgo discussing the storyline so that you might have the pleasure of seeing it unfold for yourself. But this, I'll share. In this movie, there are some wonderful one-liners, and one that stood out for me was the very last line of the movie: Plan to be surprised.

As a Career/Life Coach, some of my work with clients is around planning. It's often about identifying your ideal life and/or career, then setting goals and designing a plan of action, and finally taking actions that will lead you to your goal(s). This is equivalent to setting a destination in sailing and then plotting a course for how you will get there, depending upon the wind direction, the chart of the waters, the tides and weather, and any other known obstacles or considerations. Or it's like choosing a travel destination for a vacation and then mapping out all the sights you plan to see while there or en route.

But as most boaters or travelers know, "stuff happens". The "best laid plans of mice and men" do go astray sometimes. What happens when Life throws you a curve? When something unexpected comes your way? And I'm not just talking about unpleasant surprises here, but also about pleasant surprises - wonderful surprises - surprises beyond, or different from, your wildest dreams. What then?

Take vacations, for example. Sometimes the best things that happen are the unplanned ones. Another movie comes to mind: Under the Tuscan Sun. If you have seen the movie or read the book, you know that Frances, the heroine, takes a tour of Tuscany, at the urging of her friends, in order to get over a painful divorce. But during a planned tour stop in a small village, Frances sees a flyer about a house for sale. She impulsively checks it out and her whole life changes - in good ways - in ways she couldn't have imagined when she began the tour or even when she bought the house.

I believe in visioning, goal-setting, and planning. I also believe in flexibility and in being open to the new possibilities that are presented to us at unexpected moments in life. In sailing, you must have a destination and must plot a course in order to have a direction and gain some momentum. However, as a sailor, you also know that any number of events could arise to throw you off course, and you need to be prepared for that. Sometimes you end up at a more desirable destination. Sometimes you're shipwrecked. Sometimes you're just stalled in the water for a while until you choose a new course.

So, for me, the approach I choose to take to Life and to coaching is paradoxical. My approach is to dream, to set goals, to plan, to follow your bliss and at the same time to pay attention, to live fully in the moment, and to allow your bliss to take you in unexpected directions. In other words: Plan to be surprised.

How Do CRAMPS Relate to Goal-Setting?

What is a Goal?

A Goal is the ongoing pursuit of a worthy objective until it is accomplished. [from The Power of Focus, by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt, 2000.]

In the world of goal-setting, it is important to understand how to create an effective goal, a goal in which Success is the end result.

In my previous blog (Mega-Goals, Mini-Goals, and Office Organization, July 23, 2007), I described a goal-setting method called Setting SMART Goals.

Let's review the SMART goals model and then explore a new one - the CRAMPS model.

The model of setting SMART goals has been used by coaches for many years now, and it incorporates many of the qualities of successful goal-setting. SMART goals are:

S = Specific

M = Measurable

A = Achievable

R = Realistic

T = Time-framed

The CRAMPS model is one that I developed a few years ago for my goal-setting workshops. This model incorporates all the qualities of SMART goals and adds a few more that refine the goal-setting process even more and build in an even higher probability for success. Although the CRAMPS acronym is not nearly as elegant or as sexy as the SMART one, it IS memorable, and that is what is important.

So, a CRAMPS goal is:

C = Clear (Specific. Simply and clearly stated. One concept at a time.)

R = Realistic (Is this a realistic goal for me?)

A = Attainable (At all? Within the specified time frame? Am I willing to do what it takes?)

M = Measurable (Usually includes numbers and measures; always time-related.)

P = Positive (Framed in positive language; states what you want, not what you don't want.)

S = Supported (By you and by selected other people and/or other resources.)

How could the CRAMPS model help you to set more effective goals in your work or personal life?

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Although this Blog site is not set up to be interactive at this time, feel free to contact me with your comments.

Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com

Mega-Goals, Mini-Goals, and Office Organization

Sometimes the goals we set for ourselves are small and very doable in the allotted time frame. Other times, the goals we set for ourselves are huge - complex and often time-urgent. These I call Mega-Goals. Usually a Mega-Goal involves a big life change. Examples: deciding what to do after graduation, selling and/or buying a home, relocating to another part of the country, beginning or ending a significant relationship, changing jobs or careers, preparing for retirement.

When faced with a Mega-Goal, it is easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged. And the typical response to this kind of overwhelm, in addition to frustration and fatigue, is often either to procrastinate or just shut down and back away from the project altogether.

This feeling of overwhelm is something I experienced recently at the end of my year-long Letting-Go Experiment. I had completed my 365-day experiment of releasing one material or non-material item per day. I felt very proud of my accomplishment. However, my major reason for starting this experiment in the first place was still staring me in the face. My office! While the other rooms and storage areas in my home now had been relieved of their excess clutter, my office had not.

I need to begin this story by saying that, typically, organization is one of my strong points, my skills. I like my living space to be clean and uncluttered. The state of my office for the past couple of years has been atypical.

One room in my small home is totally dedicated to my office. While once there had been a futon in my office to accommodate overnight guests, this was now long gone. On every wall, there are bookcases, filing cabinets, or desk surfaces, and all overflowing with stuff. There are also several extra storage bins and boxes jutting out into the room. While some of the clutter involves having too many books, magazines, and working notebooks, most of it involves - what else! - too much loose paper!

Piles of paper cover every surface in my office. Mail - a lot of mail!- (most of it junk, but occasionally something valuable), computer printouts, files waiting to be filed, notebooks full of notes from various conferences, and all sorts of miscellaneous bits and pieces of paper - scraps with important notes or phone numbers. My numerous filing cabinets (I count 15 filing cabinets of various sizes) are crammed with paper, which is one of the reasons why there is so much stuff on the surfaces.

When the computer first became the primary home office tool, one of the selling points was that it would cut down on paper files. In my experience, this has not turned out to be the case. After two or three disastrous computer crashes involving total wipe-outs of my C-Drive in a three-year period, I no longer depend on back-ups. Despite the fact that I do an automatic nightly backup of my C-Drive onto a separate drive, I still keep my important documents in paper form as well. I also print out lots of information from the Internet for my personal or professional research, because I'm not confident that I'll be able to find it again on the web if I go to look for it again down the road.

So, ever since I began my Letting-Go Experiment, in June of 2006, I had my eye on the ultimate prize - a clutter-free, highly functional office. The year came and went and the office was still cluttered and dysfunctional (and my business reflected this in some ways). So, I decided that de-cluttering my office would become my summer project. Well, not my "summer project" at first. My first goal was to complete the project in one week in June. I barely made a dent that week. Then the deadline was changed to the end of June. Then, the end of July. And a few days ago, I re-vamped this deadline once again.

Why? Because this is a project that kept throwing me into overwhelm. Every time I began, one thing led to another, such that nothing really got completed. I might work on the project for several hours and then feel as though I had nothing to show for my efforts. Office organization was on my To Do List every day, but I began to find myself procrastinating. I'd do anything else rather than tackle my office - clean out a closet, take a walk, do errands, read a book, take myself off to a movie, even pay bills (something else "painful" but yet less painful than organizing my office).

Finally, I decided to coach myself through this situation. If I were working with a client who had this challenge, what approaches might I suggest?

First, I asked myself, "Other than the obvious physical mess, what else might be blocking your efforts to clean this place up?"

Eventually, I got to the underlying emotional block. For the past year, I have been thinking about re-designing my business and taking it in some new directions. But I wasn't ready to make the decisions or the changes. So, my energy has been conflicted and scattered, and my office was reflecting this. And, I was hanging on to all my stuff, even things that were seriously outdated, "just in case" I might need them in a new endeavor. However, even though I now recognize that I am in transition in my business, and still have not made any firm decisions, I have come to understand that I cannot function well in chaos and I need to get my "career house" in order.

Next came the understanding that this office project is a large and complex one. I had been treating "de-cluttering my office" as a mini-goal, where in fact it is a Mega-Goal. I began to understand and accept that I could not complete this project in one day or one week or even one month unless this were a full-time job (which it cannot be).

So, then I did what I would encourage my clients to do with this Mega-Goal: I CHUNKED IT DOWN. [This is the main tip in this article!]

On my computer, I set out my Mega-Goal (De-Clutter and Organize My Office). Then I began breaking this Mega-Goal down into mini-goals: projects I could accomplish usually in 30 to 60 minutes - a few might take longer. I looked around my office in a circular direction and identified, listed, and defined each mini-project. Next to each, I put a check-box so that I could easily check each one off as it was completed. Altogether, this project chunked down into 50 mini-projects!

Almost immediately, I felt a sense of relief, and a relaxation of the muscles in my neck and upper back. I did not have to do everything at once. And I could experience a sense of accomplishment for each mini-goal along the way: 50 wins instead of just one!

I also gave myself a different timetable - a minimum of one mini-project a day. Some days, I only have time for one, but I can always find a half-hour to do a little one. Other days, I have time for two or three, or a more time-consuming one. A few, like sorting through old piles of mail, I can do while watching TV at night. So now, I have a more realistic and reasonable time goal: 50 days. Most likely, I will be done ahead of schedule.

Coaches often work with clients on creating SMART goals, these being ones that are:
S = specific
M = measurable
A = attainable
R = reasonable
T = time-related

Chunking this large goal, which was not SMART, into 50 mini-goals that are SMART, is already making all the difference.

So far, I have completed 5 of the 50 mini-projects, or 10% of my goal. Slowly, surfaces long-hidden are reappearing, and I am finding things I thought I'd lost. On the first day, I uncovered a refund check for $73.09 - found money!

And, best of all, my business is beginning to pick up. By about 10%, I figure. This would not come as a surprise to a Feng Shui practitioner, but it did to me - a very pleasant and welcome surprise. I can't wait to see what my business looks like in 50 days!

What is your next big project or Mega-Goal? How are you going about it? It gets much easier if you take it one small chunk at a time.

If you have had experiences similar to this one, I would enjoy hearing from you. And if my story has given you some ideas about how to approach a project that seems overwhelming to you, I would love hearing about that too.

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Although this Blog site is not set up to be interactive at this time, feel free to contact me with your comments.

Email: connie@conniekomack.com
Web: www.conniekomack.com