I finally came across the best reason I have ever heard for measuring goals. I seem to be one of those people who equate measuring with judging. It might have stemmed from always being the last person picked for the team for athletic pursuits and the first person picked to lead an academic squad or entertainment committee. Measuring, in my mind, must inevitably lead to judging something better or worse, less or more, good or bad. So I have always resisted measuring of any kind. When the recipe calls for a half a cup of cheese I just scoop out “some” cheese and think “it’s close enough”. When I meet a friend for lunch we both know I might be five or ten minutes early or late. When I measure internally, aka guesstimating, I always guesstimate on the large side. Measuring feels like pressure. My mother, who worked for years as a medical technologist, said she would never let me work in her lab on the basis of my slack measuring. (No one has ever accused me of being a scientist.) So it was a big deal when I was caught completely off guard by this comment re measuring and goals in Jack Canfield’s book on page 40:
To engage your subconscious mind,
a goal or objective has to be
MEASURABLE
Measuring is a great way to help the recipe come out right.
I was taken aback and lit up inside at the same time. The measurability of a goal is what ignites the subconscious mind???!!! Suddenly I could hear how I had heard time after time to be specific in goal setting. Sure, I can dream like the best of them, thread count of sheets the higher the better, color should be saturated and clear, I could be sipping champagne out of sterling silver straws but in order to measure this I would have to get real. Pick a date by which this would happen, or a neighborhood the house would be in. It is the specifics, that the creative mind needs to start working. Otherwise it is just a thought. To turn a thought into a form you need measurability. Time and space are good like that, pick a time and or location when this goal needs to happen by. Pick a number of zeros after the 1 to envisage in your bank account, not just ” a lot of money in the bank” but “I have $100,000 in my personal checking account at all times” (I know, it’s a stretch).
I have been walking around this thought in quiet awe all week. Naturally I checked in with Holy Spirit and asked “Why must success be measurable?”
HS: Because this is one way for you to learn to notice; measurability is an awareness tool.
That “Twelvemonth” is a measure is something to shout cock-a-doodle-doo about!
Now my eyes were wide open. Measuring (and presumably this might mean with some form of accuracy) is a form of awareness. Whoa! That is like the complete opposite of judgment. Or better yet, judgment transformed into service of love? I feel like Helen Keller in the movie with Annie Sullivan and she has just learned what a word is and runs all around vigorously tapping things and wanting to know the words for it. I want tp measure everything. How many words did I write? How long did my walk take? (& can I do it faster) How would I go about measuring the success of extending love to my thoughts? For the first time in my life I actually feel excited about choosing a goal that can be measured. And it actually feels kind of good.
Oh duh! I just realized I have been doing this all along with my blog. The first guidance I got was a MEASUREMENT: “twelvemonth”. Thank goodness I didn’t realize it was or would have quit at about 4 days. You see, it was first a “new word” which was one of my other life goals (to coin a new word and have it recognized used by others). I love it when the Holy Spirit is sneaky, don’t you? So now I have to go on and notice that I did, indeed, set a goal for myself with the blog “To Do A Daily Blog For A Twelvemonth”. Yikes. Now that I have realized this I am going to have to extend love to the thoughts that just crept up beside me to whisper in my ear “you always falter at the end”. Heck, I might just turn around and give them a big hug and whisper back: “Not this time Dudes!”;)
