Un-Hustling

Imagining a better way to live an aspirational life

Take all the time you need to build what matters to you.

This morning, compliments of the Headspace mental health app (five out of five stars, would recommend), I learned of the existence of Emily Ladau, and specifically, her advice regarding goal setting. And I love her idea so much I’m stealing it, because in the realm of leadership and self-improvement coaching, it is well understood that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery.

In my (gulp) 17 years as a leadership and strategy coach, I have cleaved faithfully to SMART goals. You know the ones — they are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound. I did embrace the next step in their evolution as well, calling my approach to goal setting WAY SMART. Take your SMART goal and apply three extra criteria — it should be Written (for reasons supported by research like this), Aligned (with your larger purpose/vision/mission, whatever that may be), and YOURS — which is probably the most important piece of the whole puzzle. If you’re not doing it for yourself, you won’t do it, and you’ll feel bad about it. Ain’t nobody got time for that. With this time-honored and foolproof formula for life success, I have coached many folks to do meaningful things, and accomplished a fair few things myself. But this approach has some serious shortcomings, and it’s overdue for a re-think.