(art credit: John Tenniel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice: I don't much care where.
The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.
Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere.
The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I share this quote each fall with my seniors. We are back in the classroom in a course we call “Post-practicum”, the purpose of which is to begin to explore the next steps in their professional career, given their recent summer internship experiences. I then give them the assignment I call the “personal press release”. The assignment is simple - pretend an organization that was hiring you five years from now was sending out a press release announcing your hiring. What are they hiring you for? What have you done to get there? The purpose of the assignment is to get them to think about where they hope to be in five years, and then think about what intermediate goals they will have to meet in order to get there. This is actually one of the most popular assignments of the semester with the students, after they grumble and complain “how could I possibly know where I will be in five years?” As the Cheshire Cat points out, we are all going to get somewhere tomorrow, and God willing, five years from now just by existing. But if we don’t set out with a goal in mind, the place we arrive at may not have any meaning. As the Talking Heads philosophically point out:
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"
In this past week’s RWL I talked about my short term goal setting for the year. But to what end am I performing these daily habits? That’s the point of this exercise. Of course, the long goal should drive the short goals, otherwise you are moving very efficiently to somewhere, but you may not much care when you get there if there wasn’t a purpose to your journey.
If a personal press release about your accomplishments doesn’t excite you, what about a eulogy? What would you want said about you if you died five years from now? This invites a slightly different perspective. Now we’re not just talking about accomplishments, but character. What would you like people to say when they stand up to talk about you? What kind of friend, spouse, parent, were you? This now invites you to set short term goals that will get you the eulogy you would like.
Pick either assignment - set the time frame for some time in the future - one year, five years, 10 years - and give it a try. Or just jot down five or six things, then reflect on what you are doing to get to those outcomes, and what you need to do in addition to what you are already doing.
There is an old Yiddish adage that I like, “Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht” which means, “Man Plans, and God Laughs.” I like this saying because I think it is true. But even if it is true, having long-term goals helps give us direction.
Take ten minutes and try it out - let me know what you think.