To be honest, goals haven’t been working for me… ever.

In the past, my personal goal-setting pattern has looked something like:

• set a goal that’s ‘SMART’

• Start down the path of pursuing the goal

• Get some early wins and feel extremely motivated by my own commitment and initial action,

Then… life starts happening. Work gets crazy, or I have trouble in one of my primary relationships. Or, maybe my ‘shiny object syndrome’ kicks in and a new more exciting or more urgent goal pops up. I start losing momentum, promising myself that I’m going to get back on track. But weeks pass, maybe months, and I may completely forget about the original goal or decide that it wasn’t really that important to begin with.

So, this year, I decided to take a different approach. Instead of starting with goals (aka, the trees), I decided to start with a story (aka, the forest).

I’m a big picture thinker, so context and the larger story are always important to me. When solving problems at work, I usually start by getting an understanding of the systems, people, and structures surrounding the problem or challenge, because that’s… what a good consultant does.

So why not take the same approach for my personal life?

Next: Defining My Life Story’s Main Character