Amir Salihefendic of the brilliantly simple but powerful online to-do program Todoist pulled out a great quote from Anatole France:

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

I’d add Reflect to that list because reviewing is such a vital element that is so often left out - it allows you to process any lessons learnt and maybe pick up a golden nugget lying around. We can’t always guarantee we are on the right path and a little reflection on a regular basis can help to pick that up. When we reflect, we can feel safer in our beliefs. A lot of people have been harmed in this world by erroneous beliefs that they have followed without any criticism. I think subconsciously, our beliefs are more powerful if they flow from a rational base.

Earlier in the week, I talked about revising my goals for pillar content for this blog and instead leaving off them for a while to see seeing where it goes. This was partly because as I’ve mentioned before, this blog isn’t the cornerstone of my web development plans and as such I think it would be silly to have such strict plans for it when really it is just a place to hold some of reflections and things I’ve learnt along the way. It was also because I think sometimes I need action to clarify what future action is required.

I have a bad habit of reading my blog roll while writing posts (no doubt I have some undiagnosed attention deficit disorder - I’m a terrible multitasking) and I thought I’d check up on DoshDosh - he had some interesting and intelligent (as usual) perspectives on to goal set or not:

Goals can distort the way you value experiences. Better to evolve
naturally for me. No expectations, no disappointments. External
yardsticks and numbers can be deceptive. They make you reach when you shouldn’t. Stay when you should keep moving…

Goals are pathway markers and destination points. But they are also
simply thoughts, conjured up and made concrete in one decisive moment.
You can change them as easily as you flick a light switch. It takes
less than five seconds. Try it.

It’s a beautiful turn of phrase - goals are only thoughts that are made concrete in one decisive moment. It’s an important lesson to remember that you don’t have to hold yourself to goals you’ve made simply because you’ve called them “goals” - doing so could be harmful if they are not the right goals or not the right goals at that particular time.

That said, we should never discount the value of goals - even though they are endpoints or milestones, events some time in the future, in many ways they are also starting points. They are a way of beginning somewhere and like website marketing, goals need to be tested. You need some action to work out whether it is your goal that is wrong or just the method you’ve chosen.

Goals are also useful if you are a serial sampler like me. If left to evolve, I would do just do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It’s actually not such a bad life in of itself but it isn’t always cheap (have you seen the price of university courses? Makes the Rich Schefrens and Stompernets of the world bargains!) and requires a bit of specialisation to support it. I also have higher goals that I know deep down aren’t ever going to happen without a whole lot more discipline and focus - it is well known that having written goals and reviewing them on a regular basis  helps keep that discipline and focus.

But we need to be critical of our goals and also allow ourselves time off to think about them creatively. I think reflecting is also not just reviewing in the “I will diligently do a weekly, monthly etc review” sense (though don’t underestimate the power of that) but reflecting is also stepping out of your box, thinking about and challenging your preconceived notions. A very undervalued way of doing this (and one I really need to do more often) is taking time out for a daily or weekly walk. There’s something about walking that stimulates thought - and creative thought at that. Whenever I’ve had a major emotional problem in the past, I used to head out for an hour’s walk (by myself and without any ipods) around my suburb and I would feel so much better at the end of it and usually have an action plan to get over whatever problem I had.

It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those walks and I think it is long overdue.