Distinction: Goal vs. a Promise

[digimint]

I recently read this in a great book. How many times have we all written down goals and not followed through on them only to beat ourselves up for not accomplishing them in the first place? What I have learned is that many times when we set goals we subconscienously never intend to complete them in the first place, because our subconsciencous is our sentry and protects us, this is by design.

We tend to keep promises. Failing to keep a promise leads to embarassment, and it is almost always something we fulfill on. This embarassment is tied to our "sentry" our subconsciencsous, therefore when making committments we might want to think of promises instead of goals. I just started a new web site and it is my PROMISE that i will reach 1,000 unique visitors in the next 30 days.

-- jim

[bollenbach]

interesting thread!

it's true though.. when I promise someone something I do what I have to in order to fulfill the promise. Where as with goals I'm finding myself constantly not being on top with them.

This weekend I worked a lot less than I should have on school. But I'm going to promise to myself to work really hard during the week to get everything done.

[Waffle]

This is definitely true for many people, I believe.
It's the same for me.

If promises were a load on our shoulders that we can keep to.
I wonder what Goals are when we hardly can keep to...
However, goals are directions for ourselves.
We should not grieve when we cannot keep to goals or milestones and give up setting them.
Instead I think we should continue working and learning from the process of keeping to goals...

[Tester]

I think goals and promises are pretty much the same. The only reason why promises might working better than goals is because you usually promise something publicly, thus you get an addititional "negative" motivation (in terms of NLP). You give yourself a LIABILITY for the task failure, and also possibly a reward for its completion. It's like when you sign a contract with yourself.

[Henry]

To me, a promise is a guarantee that you make with somebody.

A goal is a promise you make to yourself.

[kthdsn]

I chose promise simply because I don't promise things unless I fully intended to do them anyway. For example, I might promise a friend that I won't tell anyone something I was told in confidence. I wouldn't tell anyone anyway, regardless of whether I called it a promise or not.

I would never promise to do something like achieve a goal, because I can't be sure I will actually achieve it. That's just not what the word promise means to me.

[Scott H Young]

Aren't we really just debating semantics here?

Your 'promise' has all the attributes of a goal, so I don't see why it doesn't qualify as one. Your goals should be pursued with commitment, if that takes a new name, go for it.

[Andrew Brunelle]

That's a good philosophy. Instead of calling them goals, make them promises. And tell people about your promise. So that way, they'll be checking up on you. "did you do what you promised to do yet?" You need some kind of extrinsic motivation sometimes. That's at least how I feel. You have to have something constantly reminding yourself of your goals. I don't curently do that, but I feel that I definitely should start because if I ever write a to-do list, I often do most of what's on the list, but if I don't, I'm usually unfocused and lazy. I'll start this experiment today, with the first thing on the list to write the damn list. Thank you for listening.

[bus9hy]

This thread is particularly interesting to me as I have started a website based upon positive lifestyle promises - Promise Aid

As people don't want to break promises though, I think they would be more reluctant to make promises rather than goals.

[rebelwithacause]

This is a great topic.

I actually did a workshop/teleconference on this topic...

Like a lot of people mentioned here...in some ways it's just different language and ways to use your self explantory style of getting yourself motivated to follow through.\

What ever it takes is what I say...First I am a big believer of setting intentions and tapping into the help of the Universe as well...

But I do like the power of the promise vs a goal...because most people really don't follow through on their goals...a promise just adds a little more weight to the situation.

For instance if I say today that my goal is to create 3 articles and 2 videos to market my home business...

What makes us follow through on that? Everyone has a different motivation and reason why they do or don't do things...

Remember Tony Robbins? Pain and pleasure are our primary drivers...

So some people follow thorugh on the basis of receving more pleasure AKA money in this case or more customers...

And others may view the work as painful, and avoid doing it until maybe the pain of not having the income you want, gets your motivated to get back to work...

A promise to me, feels more solid...and if I skip that promise to do what I said, that it definitely gets that internal voice going and saying, hey, you;re not following through on your promise to yourself...

so maybe it's semantics...but since our minds are so into creating talk that isn't always in our best interest...

sometime you have to trick the little buggger!

Do what it takes, take the action, and getting a little help from your friend the Universe, doesn't hurt either...

All the best,

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by digimint

I recently read this in a great book. How many times have we all written down goals and not followed through on them only to beat ourselves up for not accomplishing them in the first place? What I have learned is that many times when we set goals we subconscienously never intend to complete them in the first place, because our subconsciencous is our sentry and protects us, this is by design.

We tend to keep promises. Failing to keep a promise leads to embarassment, and it is almost always something we fulfill on. This embarassment is tied to our "sentry" our subconsciencsous, therefore when making committments we might want to think of promises instead of goals. I just started a new web site and it is my PROMISE that i will reach 1,000 unique visitors in the next 30 days.

-- jim

Whats the website mate? Let us help you :-)