Setting Goals

[Anonymous]

nibbler wrote:

Is it offensive to me that they simply won’t leave me alone about how important jogging is and how wrong stationary cycling is? That they impose the one solution fits all program on everyone?

I would say that is it. I think you hit the nail on the head. The offense comes from the one-size-fits-all approach.

Why do they do that instead of allowing multiple approaches? Time. It takes a lot of time and effort and we are all volunteers, not full-time professionals at it. So…basically…offense is not the big issue…but relevance to the individual, I think.

I think I agree with you.

And I am not sure how to help in our ward. I’ll observe what they do in coming months…if anything comes of any of this or if it is just church.

[Anonymous]

I don’t know whether the church can be relative to the individual but individuals at church can be relative to one another. And I don’t know how that works at the level of our meetings, which are almost entirely one way lectures.

When people think church they probably think the 3 hour block. Maybe we need to make changes to where we think something else?

Also, the programs want results that can be measured and reported by the end of the month. The custom method takes time and can’t be summed up in a quarterly report. But it feels like the church programs are derived from making quarterly reports look good. It’s like studying for the end of grade tests by focusing on what will be on end of grade tests and at the end of the year all you’ve learned is how to take the end of grade test… the principles were secondary.

Well… if it were easy we’d already be doing it.

[Anonymous]

My grandmother was farmer. She was also a dedicated pioneer Mormon descendant. One day as when we were driving home from church, this was in the 1970’s, she burst out, “What is all this stuff about goals? Who needs goals? Everywhere we go that’s all they talk about.” This was not a dumb lady, but goals never managed her life.

Farming happens out of necessity. You don’t set a goal to be a better farmer. You can’t. You live at the mercy of a million things. There are no goals on frost, or bugs, or anything like that. Our pioneer ancestors didn’t set goals. Life just happened to them. You had 2 choices. Join the group or leave. Pretty simple.

The Goals thing is a business model. A lame one, but that’s it’s origin. The church lives and dies by polls and numbers. When the Goal-Rush began in the 70’s Stakes used to tally how many people attended Stake meetings. Wards actually received commendation for having 80% attendance, etc. Once goals took over, Joseph Smith’s idea of “letting them govern themselves” went out the door.

For me, goals guilt me. Whether in weight loss or church. I start hating the scale, but then I am hooked. Then I beat myself. I starve for 24 hours. In rage, I binge eat the next go around. I lie to my diet buddy or coach. I can even have success and then kill it an hour later at the burger store.

I also totally believe that if we stopped being a checklist model church we might just see those numbers rise. We have good stuff. If we started spending meetings talking about the good that is happening, we could fill in those gaps. Whether it’s temple, chapel, missions.

[Anonymous]

Looking over a few of the comments, I think there is a few areas where the Church is counterproductive in getting the results.

1. Offense is taught as a sin. If you take offense from the Church, the problem lies with you.

2. We are all taught that the end goal is to be just like God. What God is “just like” is a very specific thing, defined to us by very specific people with very specific ideals. It feels like we’re only given a one-size-fits-all solutions. But life’s not like that. Our experiences, our natures all shape us into very different beings.

3. There is the underlying “superstition” (I’d call it), that if we “please the God”, he will shower us with “good fortune”. If we sacrifice a bull upon the alter, the stars will align, our herds will multiply, we’ll turn a good harvest, and the raiders will leave us alone. If we attend the temple, the inactive members will have their hearts softened, the “elect” will be convinced by the missionaries to join the Church, our jobs will be secure, and our homes won’t burn down. But with that train of thought… The Rich are those favored by God, and the poor are those who are cursed. It leads to the well-off feeling, “What a good boy am I!”, and the poor leaving the Church.

There’s a Zoroastrianism proverb I wish we’d adopt:

Quote:

Do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. Then all beneficial rewards will come to you also.

In other words, do good because it is good, and not for the reward. The rewards come naturally.

[Anonymous]

dande – I am voting for you.

[Anonymous]

I am also a member of Toastmasters. The purpose of toastmasters is to help individuals develop public speaking and leadership skills. There are lots of goals, with recognition/awards tied to achieving those goals. There are individual goals, club goals, all the way up to regional goals.

In order to achieve the individual goals eventually it is required to do some very organizationally centric things – like serving in district office, mentoring a club, or chartering a new club. People will eventually start pushing you to mark off these goals because the higher you go in the organization the more the goals include getting other people to do things (so other people have goals to help you mark off your goals). Some of the responsibilities can be very time consuming and involve a fair amount of travel. You have to be able to say no or you will find yourself burning out.

Ultimately, I observe that most of the people that stick with toastmasters do it for a sense of camaraderie, community, belonging, contributing, and recognition. Achieving the goals is how you reach acceptance and belonging. IMHO.

P.S. Toastmasters is coming up with a new program called pathways that allows for more individualized “pathing” and perhaps goal setting. This appears to be in response to the next generation’s failure to embrace the “one size fits all” approach.

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

My HPGL wants me to lead a discussion tomorrow in 3rd hour council meetings on the topic of how we can achieve our goal to have 150 people attend sacrament meeting by increasing temple attendance.

Any ideas for me?

How do you feel about goals and how would you suggest it be approached?

We can’t pressure others to get temple recommends…we can invite…but is it going to be just a pressure-packed initiative? I have my concerns on the goal, and so don’t even know how to lead a discussion.

After years of being an HPGL, I found that in our church, where you have a limited number of people draw on, it’s best to be a facilitator of goals from the target group you lead. People will do waht they are interested in, and most will pass over goals set for them by someone else.

So, in this case, unless your ward is full of troopers — 20 percenters (you know, 20% of the people give 80% of the results), I think this initiative is likely to wither on the vine.

Now, to salvage this initiative, I would be inclined, if I was the leader, to hold a brainstorming meeting in whatever meeting is appropriate where everyone gives ideas about how to accomplish this goal. Then, as a leader, feed back the list to to the target group and ask them to check off those methods they are willing to support. Tell people that if they are not passionate about it, then they are free not to turn in the sheet. This alerts you not to invest time trying to drag them into this initiative, and it also shows how much support there is for this initiative. No support? Then consider moving on to a new goal — set consultatively, not mandated.

If there is support, you may find clear themes in the answer, and be able to actually form a team in some cases, or some people will act alone. Feed that back to the group, and then do a review of progress in two months. Reminders every Sunday….

Giving people agency and the means of getting the job done in ways that match their strengths is the way to success in my style of leadership…

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