Goal setting

I'm reading a new book by Michael Neill called You Can Have What You Want. Here is one interesting excerpt regarding goal setting:

I once asked one of my most financially successful clients, a multimillionaire "super salesman," whether or not he set goals. He told me that he did, and in fact always had, but not in the way that most people do. Traditional goal setting encourages us to think big and reach for the stars, but also to keep our target constant while we do whatever it takes to achieve it. My client didn't do any of that. He would sit down once or twice a year over a good meal and a nice glass of wine and ask himself, "What would be fun and exciting to make my life about over the next year?" He would then take as long as he wanted to write down his ideas until he had a list that totally inspired him. As the year unfolded, he would check in with his "goals" every now and then and adjust them up or down depending on how things were going in his life.

When he saw how horrified I looked (didn't anyone ever tell him you're not allowed to change your goals once you've written them down?), he told me something I have never forgotten: "The only real purpose of a goal is to inspire you to fall more deeply in love with your life."

There's another good quote regarding goal setting at the beginning of that section of the book. Michelangelo said, "The great danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."