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Understanding of Goal
There are lots of varying definitions and perceptions about what is a Goal. I wanted to share my understanding not so much about the perception of the word itself, but of my feeling for it. Experience has demonstrated that this feeling has shaped my life a great deal.
A goal is a conscious definition of the subject or state that I’m striving to achieve. For me, the most useful example to draw is as the horizon (the border between earth and sky), to which you’re going along the road. It’s there constantly in the field of vision, distinct objects peel off it and constantly approach me. If I don’t see something beyond the horizon then the visualisation of this object or idea plays a major role here. In this manner the goal possesses properties that are defined and complemented by details by moving towards it. More often than not one goal creates another as a result of received experience or feelings.
In daily work the goal always determines the result. The quality of the result depends on how precisely I define the desired object or actions. Consequently the first question that I ask myself at the beginning of any new project is: “What do you think the result will look like?” or “What does my client expect?” Subsequently I started to delve more deeply in the details and visualise all the key process and points which await along the road. It has been known that I sometimes lose the thread. Completely “unforeseen” things then happen, the reason for which in actual fact can be attributed to a lack of understanding and visualisation at one stage or another. It is very similar to a dream state – when I’m asleep I am not aware of what is happening.
The understanding of goals is similar to creating a to-do list. It’s impossible to create something without a foundation, basis and starting point from which everything begins. This point is man himself, as the total sum of skills, knowledge and faculties. In order to formulate the goal correctly all one needs is to simply think about it. A person’s thoughts are extremely flighty and are easily replaced by others suddenly. This formulization also includes emotional sensations and visualisation. For example, you can think about a beautiful sunset – this is simply a thought, but you can really feel it and have a real impression.
If reaching a goal requires a significant amount of time it makes sense to record and utter it. Sound and vision provide the brain with a lot of useful information and is a very good form of support which is worth making use of.
Bearing the horizon in mind I always try to start acting on formulization, transforming it into a living process. Even results and their flavour that are insignificant in comparison with the goal as a whole are capable of really helping you to see the next steps.
Accordingly when understanding goals one should rely on real opportunities and features not restricted just to mental perceptions, including feelings, as well as not forgetting that formulization is like the goal itself a process in time, and not a statistical image in your head.
Sincere Interest
Why I enjoy working
In every person’s life there are a huge number of external factors which constantly direct us. Surely we have all experienced a situation in life when they completed something and hit the ‘ceiling,’ as if seemingly nothing more can be done and it’s time to change something. Many people, under the influence of external factors, collapse at this crossroads and choose a new activity, a new partner in life, change work, take up sport, friends, etc. Meanwhile at each of these crossroads there is the possibility of a choice – to make an effort or to give up. In this context ‘effort’ will be the transition to a new level – it is as if you reach the next level without collapsing or leaving the building and don’t set off on the quest for something new. As a rule, people start convincing themselves that it’s necessary, that they are sick of the old, that they can’t be bothered to anything extra, when it is already clear... This happens, but more often than not this is a trick of our mind. In order to understand it, you have to try and think of all the events in your life which have been done without the influence of other people or unexpected events. It’s great if you find a partnership, the rest will simply be the convergence of circumstance.
I am quoting a couple of examples to make it simpler:
- You’re just about to buy something, a new sofa for example. You go into the shop, haven’t chatted to the shop assistants and chosen the one that’s most ”for you” when at the last moment someone comes to you by chance and says that this sofa is not so good, the springs are flimsy and bla-bla-bla... Certainly you have nearly been ”tricked,” you start to doubt and buy another one so at least it will be a proper sofa and not a rollaway bed.
- or, you’re driving a car, and you think about a beloved girlfriend on the new sofa..., when suddenly a boy-racer cuts you up... Nine out of ten people react to this with an attack of indignation and offence and will probably forget about the sofa and the girlfriend instantly.
The situations described are mere trifles that happen every day in real life.
Interest - is something more constant, something on which we focus our attention and maintain it for a long time. Attention is the tool that feeds our interest. The result is the end of the road, our visualisation of what we aim to achieve. The effort that needs to be applied at the crossroads, which I wrote about earlier, is the act of attention focused on a result. If this act doesn’t happen, external factors bear down from above and we can forget about the aims, results and reasons that convinced us to start one thing or another. It has often been the cast that people close to me, friends and other ‘chance’ acquaintances have turned me onto the wrong course. I consider these things a big success and a valuable lesson.
So why is work interesting for me?
Work is the process of searching for those same perspectives from which I can make a step forward in development. Unfortunately I never use the opportunities presented by life to the maximum. I never pay enough attention. Nevertheless, when this happens somehow or other, it is an extremely stimulating and motivating therapy which provides a lot of new experience and opportunity.
To-do list
A ‘to-do’ list is quite a useful thing. I acknowledge myself that I carry one when all tasks accumulate, but this is a lot. Аnd beside, it is one of the things that helps our brain complete planned tasks at the necessary time and in the right order.
Why does this happen?
Practically any idea that appears in my head begins from a thought which gradually, if I retain in my memory, becomes overgrown with new similar thoughts like a snowball into an idea, complemented by different shapes and pictures from reality. But all this is still sitting in my head, i.e. it is guarded by an internal keeper of information – my memory. This same memory is constantly bombarded with new information from within, by our new thoughts, but more often than not from outside – by other thoughts, impressions, as well as by other ‘rubbish’ that we imbibe with our eyes and ears everyday on the way to work, watching TV, listening to the radio and so on. Therefore, if your don’t focus your attention on certain important thoughts or ideas they risk being submerged under a heap of ‘rubbish’ or sent to a hidden compartment because of its purported lack of importance.
However it is worth not forgetting that the brain also receives information from external sources. So, things that you have seen or heard can serve as confirmation or supplementation to the information stored in our memory in the form of an idea. If I can’t find a supporting confirmation of one idea or other right away I can at least write about what I have thought. As a rule, this is a simple selection of theses, this same ‘to-do list,’ but it is sufficient for different, deeper levels of memory to act.
The next stage is going through the list and replenishing it with new information. Once I have done something I start getting impressions from the actions (or emotional experiences). That is how I complete and renew my to-do list.
In the final analysis the composite of impressions, intellectual knowledge and physical sensations form practical experience for which under certain circumstances it doubtless counts as “knowledge.”
Principal of Development
Each and every one of us who undertakes any activity in life, when beginning a process gives it a start at a certain point in time and gradually reaches its conclusion. The simplest example in management could be job presentation as the beginning of the process and the Result as its completion phase.
There are also some even more long-term processes, like, for example, the strategic development of a company or state over a long period of time.
Simple and complicated, short and long processes have something in common and that is the people who are engaged in them. And if you want to be even more precise then any process development depends on the personal participation of each person in it.
The nature of most processes is dying away. Development presupposes an investment of effort (energy) in any human activity without which it is doomed to fail. The only thing that we can acquire as a replacement is experience in the field of expertise (intellect), impression (emotion) and the aggregate of functional skills (body). The observation of periodically repeated processes, arising from people, myself included, forced me to start thinking about the efficiency of getting this worthless experience. The experience has most value is one that includes the three components – intellect, emotion and the body.
When a selection of mistakes are examined in some project or other attention is usually paid to the external, intellectual component process. The emotional and functional part is left untouched but an awful lot of useful information is hidden inside.
So, when we receive some sort of intellectual instruction “from now on, do it like this” we set off to carry it out. This in turn determines the level of service we carry out as a result as well as those impressions left with our colleague, client, or interlocutor about working with you.
The human’s brain is highly adaptable. It enables us to store and apply information not just on an intellectual level, therefore it’s a completely different thing is we can feel the experience emotionally.
The most wide-spread advice in this regard, which you will hear quire frequently is “put yourself in the client’s place,” but this is an intellectual approach. It can be useful, but the most valuable experience is when you actually put yourself in the client’s shoes, for example, when talking to your supplier. At this moment the important thing is not to lose the opportunity and to observe how you feel (I don’t just mean physically, but rather your perception) react to the situation – it is only in this instance that you can really understand your client by putting yourself in their shoes.
In some instances this enables us to change our perceptions, opening up other, previously hidden, limits to what is going on. This is very important, in my opinion, Principal of Development, which consists of the fact that in any process someone must strive to extract experience as much as possible, not restricting it to one or other of its components.
Experience broadens our opportunities significantly. In particular, emotional experience allows us to relate to the client’s problems differently if we approach the situation sincerely and understand our responsibilities.
