Hello World + Goals

I like to ramble because I am a passionate passionate man.  I'm not into politics but there are a lot of topics that interest me such as: diet, exercise, leadership, making everything in life relate to some sort of sport analogy, geeking out on statistics, taking about Pareto's laws, Darwinism, how videogames ruined my childhood, how cloudy and dark Seattle is, maximum gains from minimal effort... and the list goes on.

Another reason I am starting this is to improve my typing speed (w/ the death of AIM/MSN) and I just sprained my ankle and can't move.

So here is the first post... and unfortunately it not a humorous one.  It goes hand in hand with 2011 new years goals.  I was trying to sit here and complete my graduate application essay... its not that hard just 500 words but I'd rather run a 5K race.  And in addition I have my work crew's startup meeting where I have to give some more inspirational speeches again to motivate people to "work safely in 2011".  So i've always had these notes on how to make a goals since I don't know how to get the folks to work safely and I am having trouble writing this freaking essay.

Its pretty generic and people prob heard this stuff before: Using the SMART acronym

* Specific – Be as specific as possible as to what you want to accomplish. “Spend more time with friends” is not specific and too easy to abandon because you don’t know when you’ve reached that goal.
* Measurable – If you can measure it then you’ll be able to track your progress. If you can track your progress, you’ll know when you’ve achieved it or how far close you are.
* Attainable – You can’t run a race unless you know when it ends right? It has to be an attainable goal otherwise it’s too easy to give up. You don’t want it to be easy to achieve, but you don’t want to put it out of reach.
* Realistic – This pairs with attainable because you don’t want to set such an auspicious goal that it’s impossible to achieve. You can adjust it based on your progress but you can’t shoot for the next galaxy at the start (the moon is OK though).
* Timely – Everything needs a bound. If you have no sense of when it needs to be achieved, then it can always wait until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next year.


But if you want my skinny on it here is what I came up with a ding dong proof pokeyoke template (just fill in the blanks):

"I will achieve this attainable+challenging goal of ______, by this time realistic frame _______, measured by this metric of achievement ____, by doing this action plan_____, my first course of action will be____"

A Real life example:

"I will achieve this attainable+challenging goal of making everyone work safe by this time realistic frame the whole 2011 work season or until I get promoted, measured by this metric of achievement zero-reportable injuries, by doing this action plan un-assing myself from my truck and building better relationships, my first course of action will be to have a good 2011 startup meeting"