Setting a Goal. The flag in the distance.

I just thought I would throw my 2 cents into the popular theme of setting goals in the new year.

I think we are wrong to think of goals as an end game. I don't think that achieving a goal has much value. It is the process of getting it that arms you to handle larger challenges in the future.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the idea of setting goals for the new year. In fact, I'm all for setting goals any time of year. I just think that we need to focus on why we are trying to achieve our goals, and how we plan to get there. And then, we should reserve the right to change our minds about how we plan to get there, while the goal itself remains a flagpole stuck in the sand way off in the distance, reminding us of which direction we need to ultimately go in.

Some of the tactics we use to get to that flag may not work, and we'll need to revise them. Sometimes we may need to cross a river to get there, and our plans will need to be revised again. This is an important and valuable process.

The flag in the sand keeps us going, but it is the problems we encounter along the way to reach that flag that really make us who we are.

John F. Kennedy understood this when he decided that the nation needed a rally in the middle of the cold war. He made the point well during his "Moon" speech at Rice University. If you have not listened to the speech, you should Google it and listen to the whole thing.

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."