This post is not about the football (aka soccer in some countries). :)
The objective of this blog post is to help everyone interested in finding THE REAL (or the ultimate) goal of what they are trying to achieve. In the modern times of hurry and information overload it is unbelievably easy to loose the track of the original goal or the one that is the ultimate objective.
This is why “the ultimate goal” or as it should be known – THE GOAL, is something that you are trying to achieve, and this is not as easy as it appears to be. The details are always sketchy and they can be easily lost along the way.
Consider the following example, that is my own – last year (2017) I have started to run regularly and given that I picked up Runtastic as the application that accompanies me during my exercises, I could set up and control my goal over the year. As the total noob, I have set the goal on the 500 kilometres, while running around 6 KM at a time, starting with May-June of 2017. If you look at the picture, you will notice that the running goal for the year was not achieved.
Failure to achieve
It was exactly around 6 KM that were missing in order to complete 500 KM, and I want to share the story behind this situation. I was actually planning to do the final run of those 6 KM on the 31st of December, while staying in a wonderful place, which I will describe one day in a different post …
I had the equipment, I had the motivation & support of my family (yeap, without that precious support nowhere close to my ULTIMATE Goal I would be) … and then, in a company of wonderful people – came a suggestion of climbing to the top of the hill that was near us.
At that moment I had a realisation that I might have to come to the impossible choice – to climb with a group of truly interesting and remarkable people or to complete my running goal (and eventually impress everyone on social network with a “mission completed” statement, a “society-rewarding” selfie, etc).
The result
Yes, that is the Comporta looking far far away on the picture.
The ultimate goal
I had a moment of realisation that my ultimate goal was not running for 500 km in a given year. My ultimate goal was not even to start running, nor was it testing my speed limits (even though I really do that and I enjoy breaking my personal records) – NO!
My ultimate goal in this particular case was taking care of my health, kicking my bottom in a course over the year and ultimately (pun warning) – becoming healthier & happier.
Realising that helped to make the right decision.
The “cherry on the cake” for me was that after we came back from climbing, I still had time & energy to complete the running goal in 2017, but I simply sit down and analysed the situation, trying to compare my running goal with my ultimate goal.
In the 2018
I might be able to make my running goal of 2018 (just 38 KM left) … but my ultimate goal is already achieved. What was it ? Well, the year is not over yet ;)
In general
As Simon Sinek mentioned in his book Start With Why (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), one need to start with WHY is she/he are doing this particular activity and a deeper understanding might lead us to very important conclusions & consequently decisions.
In IT
In Information Technology, I feel like we have a tendency of focusing on the data & information part, ignoring more important things that represent the ultimate goal (think something that can be started with the insight and gone back into the physical word most of the time)
“Let’s tune this query to run even faster!”
“Let’s upgrade to the latest software version!”
“Let’s change the logic of this procedure so it will be easier!”
“Let’s explore this data and find something in it!”
What about the precision of the faster delivered results ?
What about the bugs that the new version of the software will bring ?
What happens after we are not supporting the procedure, will the new/old colleague be able to understand it ?
What are we looking for in our data ? Why are we searching for this type of answer ?
Why are we changing a functional system that delivers the stable results that are desired ?
What are we trying to achieve here ?
(I am not even trying to focus conversation on the limited time, this would be a whole another story and a blog post)
What is the ultimate goal that we are trying to achieve here ?
This is not to say that some rules are need to be broken and that the only constant in the nature is the change – I am trying to say that we need to understand our ultimate goal BEFORE advancing with any of the changes and unless we define well and accept the ultimate goal, maybe it is better to wait just a little bit, until the ultimate goal and the path to achieving it is clear ?
I guess that this post is not being written ONLY for the readers of my blog, but I am definitely writing it for myself – to focus better on the ultimate goal and the desired outcome, since looking back I recognise of failing an incredible number of times.