Your Priorities are the Key

This short course is short because it takes time to consider and reflect on the concepts and questions you will work through. Know that, in only a very few instances will one decision prove to be better than another. What does matter is your thoughtfulness and heart attitude.

The Twenty Secrets of Setting SMART Goals

1.      Knowing your priorities
2.     Establishing realistic goals and expectations
3.     Knowing there is always a price to pay
4.     Self-confidence I: Recognising Major Personal assets
5.     Knowing and exploring your proclivities
6.     Self-confidence II: Getting over fear of rejection and failure
7.     Knowing that it is easier to leave a a person, place situation job, activity or anything else than to find one to go to.
8.     Knowing that conditions are always imperfect
9.     Recognising that moods make a difference
10. Accepting ambivalence
11.   Self-confidence III: Handling insecurity and anxiety
12.   Acquiring commitment, investment, involvement
13. The value of integrated concentration
14. Profiting from other people’s experience, expertise and help
15. Delegating responsibility
16. The effective use of time
17.   Insight, motivation, discipline
18. The postponement of gratification
19. The value of struggle
20. Self-confidence IV: knowing and accepting what it means to be a person.

Identifying and Refining Your Priorities

Being out of touch with your driving priorities is a major block to setting goals and making decisions. Your priorities are how you establish a way through the life issues you are faced with. No one can set them for you and when they do, there is a danger that you will fight against them and regularly make disastrous decisions.

When you know your priorities, they will help you understand your underlying values. They will help you appreciate your unique approach to real, every day, practical issues.

First Exercise – Identify Your Priorities

You will need to set aside at least two hours during which you will not be interrupted. Then secure 20 new index cards.

·       Below is a list of the 20 common priorities. Using this as your resource, write one of the words on one side of each card.
·       Once completed, consider each card and prioritise them on a s scale of one to ten. One being the most important to ten being not the most important.
·       If you identify another priority that is fundamental to you, write that on a card.

Use these Twenty-six Common Priorities

1	Health	14	Integrity
2	Sex	15	Roots Tradition and ethnicity
3	Family life	16	Religion
4	Work	17	Physical activity
5	Money	18	Intellectual activity
6	Sociability vs solitude	19	Creativity activity
7	Children	20	Appearance
8	Security	21	Pleasure
9	Prestige Power and Recognition	22	Excitement Stimulation and variety
10	Education	23	Romance
11	Relaxation	24	Feeling good Freedom from stress
12	Physical comfort and convenience	25	Ownership of property or material things
13	Quality of time	26	Weather

The Best Way to Set Goals

Start with an understanding that your goals are to lead to a balanced life. Some goals will be BIG.

In fact, any goal must be big enough to cause you to stretch and use the abilities you’ve been given. Some goals will have to be long-range, step-by-step goals, worth waiting for.

Don’t change your decision about a goal, although you may need to alter your course to get there. Go as far as you are able and when you get there, you will be able to see further.

Some goals must be daily, routine and small goals, some ongoing (for example, maintaining your values, health, spiritual growth and relationships).

Some goals must be reached with the assistance and/ or involvement of others. Finally, some goals must be very specific and focused. Identifying clearly what you are willing to work toward is critical.

Be Realistic

· Everyone has limitations. Setting an unrealistic goal is the quickest way to failure and discouragement.

·       For instance, if you are 70 years old and set a goal to go to the moon, it likely will not happen.
·       When a goal is too big, if it is not practical or out of reach it will only set you up for failure and saying to yourself, ‘I told you!’
·       Or if you must depend on luck (such as winning the lottery) that is not a goal, it is luck.

The Exercises

Before you begin these exercises, you need to know that the goal of these exercises is to establish four to five goals. To do this you need to have “Goal-Setting Equipment”:

· Uninterrupted time and quiet until you’ve finished Part 1 and subsequent time spaces for the follow-on exercises.

· All answers must be printed – do not print too large

· Use a timer and stick to it as instructed A pack of index cards or a notebook

· Writing implement(s) – this can be a pen or pencil or a bunch of coloured markers (especially good for the follow-on exercises as you may wish to colour-code items)-

· Begin …

Part 1 - In one hour (60 minutes):

1.      List EVERYTHING you want to be, or do, or have. This is your ‘Wild Idea Sheet” from which goals will cascade. Write without editing as you build your list – just go wild!
2.     Best to leave space between each of the items if you are using a notebook (rather than index cards) as you will be writing more about each item.
3.     Once you’ve completed the hour you will have 90% of everything.
4.     Set the list aside to rest for 24 to 48 hours (During this time you may add to the list, but typically this will only be to make some refinements).

Part 2 – Depending on the number of items you’ve listed could take up to two hours

1. For each item you’ve listed answer the question ‘Why?”

2.     Use only one sentence after every item.
3.     The real task here is to identify what you really want.
4.     If you find something that would be good to do, but it is not in your heart, put a check beside it or cross it out
5.     Say ‘No” to the good, so you can say ‘Yes’ to the best and most significant for YOU.

Part 3 – Assign each item one category – depending on the number of items left could take around 45 minutes or less.

·       Physical
·       Mental
·       Spiritual
·       Social
·       Financial
·       Career
·       Family

Note: If your list is out of balance. Every category should have at least one goal. Consider if and how to bring balance to your goals. Again, this is about eliminating what will not fit in your ultimate goals.

Part 4 – The Basic Seven

Consider the items left. Ask yourself, ‘Will reaching this goal make me … ‘

1.      Happier (pleasure is short lived and doesn’t always lead to happiness)?
2.     Healthier?
3.     More prosperous?
4.     More secure?
5.     More popular with more friends?
6.     More peaceful and freer from stress?
7.     Improve my family relationships?

Part 5 – The Five Questions

These five questions are designed to help you pare down the list even more. Remember the ultimate goal is to have from four to five:

1. Is it really YOUR goal? If it is someone else’s for you (other than what a parent or teacher or boss requires) it will be difficult if not impossible to put your heart into.

2.     Is this goal morally right and fair for everyone concerned?
3.     Will it take you closer to or farther away from my major objective?
4.     Can I emotionally commit yourself to complete this goal?
5.     Can you see yourself reaching this goal (or are you kidding yourself)?

Part 6 – Select the Top Four or Five (one for each finger – more on that later)

Work to pare your list down to just four or five goals. Keep the others for what to do next after you reach a goal.

Here’s how:

A.    Take inventory of where you are in relation to each of the remaining goals. Not knowing your location today means you will have little, if any, insight of which direction to take to reach the goal. Remember Alice and the Cat!
B.    Put a date on each goal as to when you would like to reach it.
C.     State benefits of reaching the goal (What’s in it for YOU?)
D.    What are the obstacles, constraints, mountains you must conquer to reach it?

‘See Food Diet’

A ‘see-food’ diet is a light diet that allows you to eat whatever you see) it is up to you to discriminate and decide on a strategy you can bear to deal with what it takes to reach any goal.

A.    What are the skills or knowledge needed to reach the goal?
B.    Who do you have to work with or coordinate with to reach this goal?
C.     What is a reasonable plan of action to reach each goal?
D.    Break every goal into ‘clumps’.

You can only eat an elephant a bite at a time. The same goes for reaching any goal.

Part 7 – Next Steps

Once you’ve narrowed your goals down to four or five, transfer these onto fresh index cards and ideally into an “Annual Performance Planner” or notebook.

References

Credit: @iamreneemarino

...and we're beginning to see the effects.

This short video, featuring cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, reveals a troubling trend: Gen Z is the first generation in modern history to underperform their parents on key cognitive measures, specifically attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and problem-solving.

And this, despite spending more time in formal education! The shift coincides with the heavy rollout of screen-based learning in schools.

Data shows students spending around five hours a day on computers for learning scores more than two-thirds of a standard deviation lower than those students in programs that focus more on traditional (paper-based) and face-to-face learning strategies.

International findings

International assessments across many countries tell a similar story. Successful learning experiences are based in collaboration and personal interaction. As a learning experience designer and facilitator for over two decades, this resonates deeply with what I’ve observed.

Well-crafted face-to-face facilitation gives participants time to experience concepts, let insights ‘bed in’ and share personal ‘aha’ moments with others. Once that magic happens, learners become motivated to retain learning and change behaviours. Human connection and collaboration drive genuine personal development.

The move toward predominantly digital learning has too often shifted the focus to colourful screens, short mini-messages and quick hooks that are more about initial engagement than deep processing or lasting application.

The tell-tale backpack

Yet, here in Australia, despite all the emphasis on digital learning, kids still lug around large backpacks weighed down with paper books! It’s an amusing sign that we haven’t fully replaced the fundamentals that support better retention and comprehension. (Perhaps, it’s like hedging our bets — just in case the screen fails… or the brain does.)

Combination learning works

Early in my career, when asked to build online courses for one of Australia’s top financial institutions, I saw how easily e-learning could become compliance-focused rather than capability-building.

I pushed back and designed interactive, group-oriented, online experiences that blended digital tools with real human connection. The results: changed behaviours, fewer errors, greater confidence for participants and their leaders and improved customer satisfaction.

I carried that same approach to the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), to create a series of dynamic learning courses. AIM, thankfully, continues to value effective, face-to-face training alongside well-designed. digital learning. They continue to prioritise what works over what is simply cheaper, faster or trendier.

Organisations are investing more of their budget in training than ever, often with disappointing returns on real impact.

Just click the boxes!

Yesterday, a mandatory compliance course I’d completed only six months earlier landed in my inbox. With my contract ending in about ten days, I chose to ignore it. However, my manager was copied in. He reminded me the automated system would flag non-completion and create chaos for him, so… just finish it.

So, I did. I sat there ‘purposefully engaging’, but the content felt so thick with explanations that it seemed pointless. And the answers to the test questions were obvious!

We must do better!

Learning is about shared experiences

Authentic behavioural change still happens best when groups of participants work together with a skilled facilitator who encourages human connection, discussion, and time to reflect on the ‘why’.

It is not about spending solitary screen time and ticking boxes.

Screens do have their place, but they work best when they support, rather than replace, thoughtful facilitation.

Oh. and paper still has a critical role too, as many schools are quietly rediscovering. (How Taking Notes by Hand Improves Conceptual Memory).

What has your experience been? Let me know your thoughts.

Write4You

Sunday, June 7, 2026

What I’ve Learned About Goal Setting from Alice that Works