Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Some Perspectives on Goal Setting

Management guru Peter Drucker is credited with saying, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Certainly this quote is applicable to goal setting because how you choose today can affect your life tomorrow. Most of us set goals that we hope will lead to what we want in the future. At times, we succeed brilliantly! At times, we fail; or perhaps we settle.

So, it seems like a good time, here on the cusp of a new year, to consider some perspectives on goal setting.

According to a guide to personal goal setting at Mind Tools, you should start with some idea of what you want to achieve in life, and then develop a 25-year plan of smaller goals. You then break these goals into progressively smaller units, ultimately leading to your daily to-do list. As well, at eHow, an article on how to set goals suggests setting lifetime goals and then, starting at 10 years out, establishing goals in progressively smaller chunks of time.

Talk about creating your future!

This Time It's YOU

In its December 25, 2006 issue, Time magazine announced the person of the year: this time it's YOU.

Given your access to a broad range of online tools for controlling the information age – from Wikipedia to MySpace, to YouTube, to flickr, to TypePad, to other sites – you now have the power to reach and influence others – millions of others!

Actually, this is not much of a surprise to the folks at trendwatching.com. They have been documenting important business and consumer trends including Generation C, the rapid proliferation of consumer generated 'content' on the Web, and MASTERS OF THE YOUNIVERSE, the power of new consumers to “create  their own playgrounds, their own comfort zones, their own universe.”

I think these trends are terrific, not only for the unprecedented power to own your life, but also for the challenge to answer one of the fundamental questions of life: Who, exactly, are you?