Cutting Goals in Half

Something I write about in my upcoming book is setting realistic goals or expectations for ourselves. I think many of us who work in schools tend to set our goals big. And nothing against big goals, they can be very motivational. It’s important to dream big and have high expectations for ourselves. But dreams and goals are two actually different things in my mind. Dreams should be wildly aspirational-a vision for the future that seems so out of reach that we don’t know how we will get there. Love big dreams!

Goals on the other hard are practical mile markers that support us in understanding where we are on the path achieving big, scary dreams. Perhaps this distinction doesn’t much matter. As James Clear says, “We don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.”

What I’m finding, and this is just me, but if I set my goals too big, my systems become unwieldly and unrealistic. I have so many sad examples. As an enneagram 3, striving unrealistically is a way of life for me, and I’m working to ground myself. Not only do I struggle with setting my goals too big, but I struggle with setting too many goals at one time. It’s exhausting because I’m always striving and often falling very short.

This happens in our schools too. We set big ambitious goals, and we often set a lot of them. And then, as the year goes on, it’s clear that our systems cannot support these goals and oh wait, we have new priorities too, and suddenly, it feels like everything is important and therefore, nothing can be important. Many times, this happens to us by people in authority above us.

And there is certainly more I could say about all of that and yes, I have many opinions about how school should be different. In the meantime, this is why I think it’s more important than ever to be very thoughtful about what we do control. Our own goals and expectations of ourselves and the systems that make reasonable sense in supporting those goals. Jon Acuff encourages us to “cut our goals in half” in his book, Finish. Because often, we can actually go further, faster, for longer when the work feels attainable. When we cut goals in half, we often end up surpassing our goals and out performing what we set out to do. This is such a silly example but bear with me. I set a goal to read 10 pages of a professional book a day. This sounds pretty minimal, yes? To many of you, I’m sure it does. But there were some days when I was just tired and couldn’t get there. There were some days when I made myself push through and then guess what? I have no idea what I read because I was just tapped out. So, then what? I need to keep reading and growing. So, ok, well 10 pages a day for a week is 70 pages. Instead, maybe I commit to reading 35 pages a week, and I don’t get prescriptive about how many pages I read in a day. Some days, I will want to read 10 or 15 or even 25. Other days, I only want to read a few or none at all. But, it turns out, this I can do. This I can do because I made two decisions:

• Cut my goal in half.
• Adjust my systems for meeting the goal, so they honor my true tendencies.

I’m just tired of walking around feeling like I’m not doing enough or like I’m not “enough” because I’m not doing enough. While we continue to do the work of separating our value as human beings from what we accomplish, let’s also be reasonable about what is feasible.

Life is hard enough. The pressures of work or being a parent are hard enough. We don’t need to make it harder on ourselves by setting unrealistic expectations. Thinking and moving smaller can help us achieve more in the end. It can help us feel better too. You know?

What are some goals you can cut in half?

What can you adjust in your systems to honor your true tendencies?