Knowing what you want is important

In the recent past, I have found many people who didn't know where they wanted to go. Also, there were others who exactly knew where they wanted to reach—they had well defined objectives.

At times, only defining the objectives and working towards them is not sufficient. It may also occur to one later, that all the efforts were in vain if things were not well orchestrated.

Reasons for Failure

The two main reasons that are the cause of failure in realizing one's objectives are:

Incorrect Direction

Insufficient Magnitude

When you know where you want to reach, say 'A cyber law expert in the next 4 years', then a wrong direction, like the devoted study of Chemistry is of no use.

If you know the correct direction, but if you are putting in very less effort to achieve your goals, they may not be realized. Not studying hard enough for a "cyber law" examination which will aid you to be an expert in 4 years time (which in actuality turns out to be a six year affair) is unacceptable.

Okay, here we go.

Define Fuzzy goals.

Fuzzy Goals are abstract long term goals. These could be like "I want to make a motion picture in the future" or "I want to be able to communicate with extra-terrestrials".

Be practical in what you intend to do. It depends on an individual's understanding of resources and effort required to realize the fuzzy goals, and what he considers to be practicable. For somebody, making a motion picture may sound viable, but communicating with extra-terrestrials a big no-no.

UnFuzz your Goals one step at a time.

The intention now is to make the Fuzzy Goal much more tangible. You will have to add more detail to what you want to achieve.

Let us UnFuzz the Fuzzy Goal "I want to make a Motion Picture in the future".

Adding details one attribute a time, we have the following list:

a. When: by the end of 2010

b. What: A Musical/Drama/Science Fiction

c. Language: English

d. Budget: Less than INR 100000 (Recorded on MiniDV format, and roping in friends to act.)

e. Target audience: Film festivals for parallel cinema

Setting Intermediate Goals.

Now that you know how your goal for 2010 looks, you know that you will have to be upbeat so as to meet your goal for 2010. For the same, you need to set what we call "Intermediate Goals" or "Rungs". These involve a lot of backtracking from your UnFuzzed Objective. Rungs or Intermediate Goals help you in understanding what you need to do in the period from now to your UnFuzzed Goal.

As an example, between now and 2010, you need to zero-in on a music composer, a script, screen play, a MiniDV Camera, actors, props, sets and much more. Now a music composer will only come into picture when I have a camera, and at least a scene already shot. But before that I need a script.

So, the rungs look like these (be careful to go in the right direction and with enough magnitude):

Script: Mid 2007

Screen Play: Jan 2008

Chart out locations and Investment: from mid 2007, with inputs from Script and Screen Play, but before Dec 2008

Rope in friends as actors: Dec 2008

Buy Camera and begin experimenting: Dec 2008

Begin shooting: Jan 2009

Music Composer: before Jun 2009

Post-production and titling: Dec 2009

Worldwide premiere: Jan 2010

Planning ahead.

Keep a tab on what's happening today and how it can influence your future goals. The influence could be positive or negative. For example, if you are contemplating going to music classes, you already know that it aligns to one of your future goals.

You can save some money by composing your own music for your project. Also, at the music class you may also find somebody keen on jamming with you for your movie as well, as it may mean a good break for him.

Another example would be keeping track of locations for the movie project—some waterfalls dry up in summer, so it may mean scheduling the scene well in advance or have contingency plans (like having 5-10 people pouring water from buckets to recreate the waterfall, or a huge pipe emptying a water tanker).

This should set you up for success, and help you in achieving your goals.

Good Luck!!!