Attitude and Action

A visitor came into school this morning to talk to our ninety 9/10-year-olds about goals. He began by talking about the adventurer, John Goddard, who wrote down 127 goals at the age of 15 and, at the time of writing, has completed 109 of them by the age of 74. He also recounted the experiences and achievements of the likes of  Richard Branson and Alan Sugar and challenged the children to think about their own goals, asking them if they would like to be 'healthy, wealthy, wise and respected'. He drilled these down by suggesting hypothetical targets that you could aim for and how these might be achieved. 'How would you like to run a marathon, have £100,000 in your bank account, own a large house, a big car, gain a PhD, be a community leader, etc, etc?' All these sounded achievable to some extent and actually quite inspiring, the way he articulated it - but I just felt there was something not quite right about it and, having mulled over this for the rest of the day, I think this is what bothers me:

1. Most of us are very 'ordinary' people living quite ordinary lives, earning ordinary incomes and living in ordinary homes and doing ordinary jobs - and actually quite content with that, given that we are realistic about our expectations, our responsibilities and our dreams. I worry that hyping up goals and comparing ourselves favourably with the likes of John, Richard or Alan is a tad unrealistic and actually could do some damage to our self-esteem in the long term - and perhaps even turn us off the whole concept of goal-setting altogether as we realize the disappointment of not being of the same calibre as the aforementioned entrepreneurs. Yes, exceptional achievers are out there but they are in a minority so infinitesimally small, they are at the extreme top end of the normal distrbution curve - whilst the rest of us reside around the considerably larger bell in the middle: commonly known as the 'majority' and hovering around the 'average'. Is it really fair to raise the hopes of highly impressionable 9-year-olds and persuade them that they all - bar none - can secure staggering achievements like John, Richard and Alan? I think otherwise...

2. The word 'happy' was not mentioned once. Most people, when asked what they really, really want, will respond with a sentence containing the word 'happy', along with other values-based commodities such as 'friends', 'partner', 'family' and 'long life'. I suspect that not many really hanker after mind-boggling goals: they really just want to be happy and to be with the ones they love. A minority are exceptional and will achieve mind-boggling statistics - and be happy, too. However, if we all attempted that, many of us would fall by the wayside, decidedly unhappy, unfulfilled and utterly disappointed, having been convinced that these goals were within our reach. Happiness, on the other hand, is...

Am I completely off the mark or does the 'happiness' goal resonate with you?

By the way, this is my first attempt at blogging and is, in fact, the first step to achieving one of my (realistic!) goals for 2012. I plan to continue blogging at the rate of one blog a week. Thanks for dropping by - please come back and visit again sometime.

Please do leave a comment if you so wish: I will be delighted that readers feel able to contribute to the discussion.

Phil