Personal Goals and #OperationBluewater

Most people miss out on life because they don’t have a strategy around personal goals.

Most Lack a Personal Goal Strategy
Let me lay out some the observations I’ve noticed from some of the smartest folks I’ve watched achieve success in their lives.  Often they first tell me about the challenges, that most people don’t even have a personal goal strategy.  1) Most people don’t even have personal goals, seriously try it,  ask folks you work with: “What’s your personal goal?”   2) Most people think the end goal is a at 65 and do all their planning in anticipation of retiring a glorious life after doing 45 years in a desk job.  3) People confuse personal goals with personal first downs.  In football, A first-down is an incremental improvement (10 yards) but not the final goal.  Some examples of first-downs are  to finish a project, get a raise at work, lose 5 pounds, or to put money in their 401k account –all short term tasks but not addressing what they really would do if they were freed in life.  4) Most people keep their personal goals private and to themselves.  Afraid of rejection, or wanting to keep it private they write their idea down in the back of their minds, hoping it’ll someday get accomplished.

Develop A Personal Goal Plan
Now that I’ve outlined some of the challenges, let’s focus on the guidelines.

1. Actually have a personal goal. This is the most difficult one, although this requires some soul-searching think about the following questions:  “What would you do if you were able to retire right now?”   or  “What would you do if you were able to stop working because you’d be independentatly wealthy”.
2. Weave this goal into your life. Rather than waiting for 65 to achieve this goal, start weaving it into your life right now.  Make it your job, your career, your mission.  Do real research and write a blog about the topic, start to speak about it, people will see you as someone focused on it, which will fuel your path to the this goal.
3. Work backwards. Setting the goal is easy, but then layout the steps you’ll need to achieve in order to get there, I try to lay out 10 steps, and I can obviously see the first few steps and the last few steps, yet it’s dizzying filling out the in-between steps.
4. Tell everyone. Rather than keep your personal goals secret use your online and offline social networks to help people achieve your goals.  You’ll be surprised at people who have similar goals, or want to make that their goal and will join you.   Your network of friends will help you fill in the middle or ending steps that you might have been unable to see.

My Personal Goal: Operation Bluewater, 30 days in Hawaii, Net Positive
For what it’s worth, I’m going through this as I focus on #OperationBluewater: To spend 30 days in Hawaii net positive (I’m not paying to be there) a year, which I briefly outlined a few weeks ago.

Retirement, why wait now?  weave it into my career now, and work from the beach.  I blogged before how I love the tropics, the beautiful beaches, warm humid air, pink skies, Japanese food, and kind souls .  It’s a mere 5 hours plane ride for me from SF, and half way to Asia, and while it feels like another place, the creature comforts I’m used to are all accessible.  Rather than waiting till I’m 65 to retire there, I’m going to slowly relocate, up to 30 days at a time and maybe increase the duration over time.   So far, my plan is on track, and I’m following the guidelines above.

So how is it going? A few weeks ago I was at RetThink at Hawaii and was able to meet locals and those that loved being at the islands, I told anyone who would listen about my goals, and they were supportive.  Lately, it’s started to take on a life of it’s own, more people are talking about #OperationBluewater (see Twitter stream), and want it to be a personal goal of their own, and Christine Lu, Chris Noble, Eric Nakagawa are starting to talk about ways to make this happen.   Often people are coming up to me and saying “I support your goal of #OperationBluewater” which I translate as “I want to do it too, let’s do it together”, great let’s do it.  So there it is,  I’m putting my personal goals out there, let’s see if my goal can grow into a larger movement.

I wish you success on your own #OperationBluewater, I hope these guidelines helped.  Please share with others about your goals, or methods in which you achieve them in your life.

Photos from the last visit to Oahu two weeks ago