Author and entrepreneur Greg S. Reid wrote a guest post at the Pick the Brain website in which he made a great point:
When we say something is a goal, it implies we will “try” to reach it.
When we say something is a promise, it suggest we WILL reach it.
I think most of us are much more careful about making promises than we are about setting goals.
Consider your goals. Would you be comfortable making them as promises?
One important distinction: I’m talking about things within your control. For example, you can promise you will write a novel within the next six months; you can’t promise that a publisher will buy your finished novel. For that you can only promise that you will complete a set of actions that present your manuscript to publishers in the best way possible.
If you try making that substitution, you may say, “Wait, I have too many goals to be able to turn them into promises!”
If that’s the case, you have too many goals. I’m not saying you will never achieve all of those, just that you won’t achieve them all at the same time.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: Which of these goals are important enough to you for you to turn them into promises right now?
If what worries you is that you won’t be able to keep your promises, jot down what you believe may get in the way.
Then either work out a strategy for dealing with those obstacles, or scale down the promise until you are confident you will attain it.
You may find this very helpful in a practical way—your vision may be that you will be a best-selling author, but your first promise could be to write the novel you’ve been thinking about. If you’re not sure you can keep that promise, start with the promise that you’ll write an outline in the next 90 days.
The more promises you keep, the more momentum and confidence you will build.
What are you ready to promise?
(Once you've made your promise you'll need to manage your time and your energy effectively. For help with that, get a copy of my book, "Focus: use the power of targeted thinking to get more done." It's published by Pearson and available from Amazon and other booksellers.)
