Professional vs Personal Goals

Do you ever set goals for yourself with the best intentions, only to fall short? I have done this in my personal life from fitness goals to savings goals, and yes, even this blog.

I set out in January to write once a month about my experiences as a young leader, it is now October, and this will be my 6^th post. 60% is not even passing!!

I find it interesting when it comes to goal achievement, my personal goals are easy to put off, push back and eventually leave behind. When it comes to professional goals, this never happens. I work harder, change strategies, get creative and make sure I can achieve my professional goals. I wonder what it is about my psyche that allows for personal goals to not be achieved, but will do everything in my power to make sure professional goals are?

As I think about it, it comes down to accountability. In work, there is someone to hold me accountable. If I don’t achieve my goals, it means others aren’t achieving theirs. I’m not leading, helping and working with my team to achieve success, so I don’t let this happen. I also have a board of directors that I report to. I don’t like to fail, and therefore will work hard to ensure I don’t have to report the inability to achieve goals.

Personally, that accountability is much harder. I don’t have someone asking me if I wrote on my blog this month. I don’t have people forcing me to go the gym or to save more for retirement instead of going on a trip (though there is value in travel, but that’s for another post). It’s definitely harder to achieve those personal goals without accountability.

Recently, I have working to find that within. Forcing myself to do things when I don’t want to. From walking my dog in the evenings, to being more conscientious of what I eat, to looking at my spending and determining what to cut that isn’t important, so I still can do the things that are important.

Writing here is my next step in this process. I know I don’t have many people reading, but it’s not all for the reader. Part of it is for me as form of journaling and retroactive analysis. It’s a way to get my thoughts on “paper” and hopefully show others they are not alone in their leadership journey. We all have those things we want to do better and work we want to do on ourselves. As I work to put focus into personal accountability, I hope you will join me in the quiet struggle toward self-improvement.