Thinking about goals

I've decided to learn how to program Android devices and then brush up on my WPF programming and finally to learn programming for the iOS (iPhone and iPad). The vehicle I'm going to use is the development of a goal-management application that will run on all these platforms: not a single code-base, but one for each platform with some common interfaces.

Apart from learning how to program for these platforms, I want to return to the methods of goal-setting and planning that I used when I was younger; methods that resulted in success. But I want to do more than just automate these methods or make them easier to access, I want to know more about what makes me tick: what makes goals work; what makes goals effective; and why sometimes when we are achieving all our goals, we still feel unsatisfied and unfulfilled.

There seem to be a lot of quick-fix solutions in terms of time-management and goal management systems with promises to change your life in 7 days. I have utmost respect for many of the authors of these systems and have seen results in my life from programs such as "Unleash the power within". However, I've also experienced that some things in life take time: learning to play a musical instrument with a degree of mastery; learning to paint; mastering just about any craft. These things take time and the "change your life in a week" solutions sell folks the idea that they really can master their destiny in a week. I think there is a big difference to taking charge of your life and time (which these systems can help with) and reaching goals that require consistent effort over long durations of time. Others might disagree, so I'll leave the blog open to comments as I develop my product.

The last few years have seen my life go down a path that I never foresaw, that some would describe as failure. I believe that too much focus on goals and achieving these goals lead me to a place where I had all the things I wanted, had reached all the goals I set for myself and was bored.

I've realised a couple of things:

1. my dreams that I had strived so hard to achieve were small dreams and I should have dreamed bigger.
2. achieving goals without having a solid reason for the goals will put you in a position where you don't celebrate your accomplishments as they have little meaning to you.

So I've been thinking about these questions:

• What is a goal?
• Why do we set goals?
• What makes goals important (caring about the outcome)?
• Why do we just give up on some goals?
• How are goals related to vision?
• How are goals related to how I define myself?
• How are goals related to relationships?

This blog is going to be quite central to my life for the next few weeks while I work on this project and as the application develops I'll be posting downloadable links to the software. This blog is part of the project.