Here's a no-hold, no-BS method to cut out the dead-weight and fluff when you plan your goals (particularly helpful for getting ready for 2010). Ready for it?

Start at the end and work your way back. That's it. If you want the expanded version, keep reading.

When you start with a very specific, very vivid end in mind, this jars you out of the usual linear thinking you use in your daily activities.

Think about a health goal. Say you want to lose weight, get healthy and all that. So while you do have a good goal... it's still not very specific. And you know that specificity is part of making SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely).

When you start with the end in mind, use your imagination and visualize the day when you reach your target weight. See your body at that weight. Imagine how it would feel to move in that body, live in that body, be that healthy. Then move back to see the steps you took to get there.


The shift from one direction, from Now into a foggy Future State, to a solid, fully fleshed out Future Goal back-tracking into the Now, literally gives us a different perspective that can show us the unnecessary stuff, unconscious roadblocks and actions we incorporate into the action plan when we use linear thinking.

There is nothing wrong with being prepared.  Linear thinking teaches us to anticipate probable and possible issues. Reverse-lookup (so to speak) thinking shows us a different way of getting to our goals, but picturing us as having attained them already, then showing us, by drawing on our experience and imagination, the necessary and vital steps it would take to get there. It teaches us to focus on our goals, not fixate on all the possible steps it would take to get there.

Forewarned is fore-armed, and a stitch in time ... well, you know.  But big goals, life goals in particular, are long range goals by definition, and life goals, in case you've forgotten, have an inescapable deadline. So you have to really zero in on what matters most to you, what you'd be willing to work at even if you're not getting paid for it, because what you make, and what it makes of you in the process, is worth your life's time.

So, back to your chosen goals, the planned end-points of your concentrated, persistent actions.

Starting at the end pre-supposes you already have a goal in mind. Do you have a goal in mind? (And an exit strategy?)

If you're still a little hazy about your goals, why not read these inspiring posts at the popular ZenHabits blog on focus and finding  your passion

Now. Look at your goal. Focus on it, mull it over. Imagine it as a Very Important Pebble and you're standing on the shores of the Present. The future -- your future-- is a pond in front of you. Imagine what happens when you pitch your goal into the future, and the ripples work back from the point of impact to reach the shore you're standing on, your Now.

Each ripple built on the one before it. A series of reverse steps, the biggest waves fading out until the smallest ones reach your feet.

Reverse the image, and you see that small steps can build up to big changes. All that, from starting at the end, and thinking back.