Saturday, April 12, 2014

goal groups, to-dos, and shaking it out




In a bout of spontaneity at the start of the week, I started a goal group. What is that? Well, it’s a work in progress and I am certain there are folks out there who can better define and organize such a group, but here’s what I did: I asked my ‘friends’ on Facebook who’d like to join in on one week of goal-sharing and goal-cheering.

The plan was to bring together a handful of friendly folks who would express an individual goal for the week, comment on ups and downs throughout the day in a private FB message group, and motivate one another in the process. It may sound silly but it’s been widely expressed that when you say a goal out loud, there’s an accountability factor that kicks in that may prevent you from flopping.

The group that formed this week took on everything from completing taxes to getting up from the desk every few hours for a healthy stretch (my own personal goal) to writing-related goals such as writing daily poems or submitting new work. Anything and everything counted, and our group grew to include six people in total with random messages throughout the day. For my part, it was a lovely thing to wake up to notes from my fellow goal-setters. There was an accountability factor there, as I didn’t want to disappoint and I knew I had an active audience awaiting my results for the day.

For this initial goal group experiment, we set out to share for one week only. But, who knows? Maybe this will spark future groups and ideas for motivating one another in formal and informal ways. I felt the impact of the group and it’s always a good thing when I can say I checked off some to-dos from my list. This was a fun way to do so!

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