Agile Personal Development

One of the last methods I’m evaluating for developing a list of lifetime goals (at least in this iteration) is using a list of questions to help you think of lifetime goals. The questions I’m using come from a Success Begins Today blog post.

The first thing I did was change the font on the lifetime goals document, it was hard for me to read and was distracting me. I then started reading through the questions, and really thinking about each one. Many of them are similar in wording (e.g. what do you want to do, what do you want to accomplish), so I had to interpret the wording changes and how it impacted my answers.

One major difference with this method over some of the other methods I evaluated is that you start with a clean sheet of paper. No ideas from other people to look at. Just a big blank space staring you in the face. Having already developed a number of goals through the other methods was helpful at this point, since I didn’t feel enormous pressure that these were the only goals I would have.

I found this exercise to be fairly challenging, it really made me think. I also noticed that on the ‘people’ related items (e.g. who do you want to eat dinner with, who do you want to meet, etc.) I drew a blank. I’m not sure if this is just a personality trait of mine (I don’t get excited by the idea of meeting someone specific), or that I have never really thought about it before. Frankly, most of the people I would want to meet are from the past (Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, etc.).

In some categories (things you want to accomplish, things you want to do), I had to go beyond the “Top 5″ list and add a few more. After brainstorming, I ended up with 40+ goals. Many of them were the same as I had generated using other methods (hey - I got desperate looking at the blank screen, I had to put something in!).

Overall, this method was pretty good for a ‘clean sheet of paper’ method. I found it easier to choose existing goals using other methods, but this method really made me think about my own personal goals and interests. Just like I learned in other life list brainstorming methods, there are some things that aren’t for me (choosing specific job titles, people to work for), while there are other categories that I can add to forever (mainly things to accomplish and places to see).

My final evaluation of the Success Begins Today Lifetime Goals method will be in a future post.

My evaluation of using My50.com for developing my life list is as follows.

Pros:

• Easy to set up an account
• Excellent list of 50 suggestions for life goals, with detailed descriptions
• Additional lists of good ideas in 9 categories
• Easy to add goals to your list

Cons:

• Difficult to browse other people’s lists without knowing keywords to search for

Lessons Learned

I like the idea of having descriptions and related ideas for each goal. I’d like to incorporate that into my personal development methodology as I develop it.

Overall Evaluation

I think My50.com is a really good site for brainstorming life goals. The extra information they provide on the top 50 goals is interesting to read and helps you think of additional goals.

The next method for developing a life list is the My50 website. They focus on developing 50 goals to accomplish in your lifetime. It is very similar to SuperViva and Life Tango in that you can add your list on-line, look at other people’s lists for inspiration, and set the timing of when you want to accomplish your goals.

First, I set up an account, pretty easy to do. Next I went to the 50 suggestions section to get ideas. This section gives you 50 popular ideas to give you a starting point for your life list. What I really liked about the 50 suggestions was the paragraph or two describing each one, plus some details about why they like the goal. Adding a goal to your list is super easy, just click the link and it’s done. They also have links to more information about each goal, with more ideas. Although this site is based in the UK, you can still get ideas if you happen to live elsewhere, the ideas just won’t be as specific to your geographic area.

After going through their 50 suggestions, I ended up with 25 goals, and 14 achievements. I think that shows that the 50 standard suggestions are good ones, ones that almost anyone will find some good ideas from. Some are generic in nature (See what’s happening in your community, be creative, take photos of your family and friends), others are specific (visit Paris, ride a rollercoaster, sleep under the stars).

The next step was to go to the Ideas section to find some more goals. This section is broken out into 9 individual categories (Activities and Sport, Flying and Driving, Creative and Entertainment, Health and Relaxation, Travel and Holidays (Vacations for me), Making or Saving Money, Relationships and Spiritual, Getting Back to Nature, and Education and Learning. Within each category, there are about 30 goals to choose from. After going through the different goals, I ended up with 67 goals, and 11 achievements.

I then tried looking up other people’s lists to get more ideas. This wasn’t that easy to do. You basically need to type in a keyword and it will pull up different people’s lists. What I need to come up with for the future is a list of keywords that I could use. I got stuck trying to find out what I should type in.

Next I went to the Places to Visit tab. This basically allows you to drill down on different continents, then countries, then regions, then cities. I think this would be more useful if you were trying to find specific cities to visit.

Overall, this was a pretty good site for coming up with ideas for your life list. I didn’t stick to the 50 goal suggested limit, but hey, I’m an overachiever, what do you expect?

You can see my “My50″ list here.