...except that announcing your goals makes you less likely to follow through with them. This TED talk by Derek Sivers explains it far more eloquently than I could: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_you...</a>
Collins and Porras suggest companies should establish Big Hairy Audacious Goals: A BHAG is "...an audacious 10-to-30-year goal to progress towards an envisioned future...A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people—it reaches out and grabs them. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused."<p>A few examples of compelling BHAGs that guided and motivated people:<p>- John F. Kennedy's BHAG of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s<p>- Microsoft's BHAG of placing a PC on every desk in every home<p>- Google's BHAG of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful
> If we’re going to turn 37signals into a $100 million/year company<p>Posting generic self-help articles would be a good first step towards this goal.
<i>So what’s your big goal? Make it public and we’ll egg you on.</i><p>I'm going to buy the Pittsburgh Steelers and beat the New York Jets so badly that we'll make Gary Vaynerchuk sorry he ever made his big wish.<p>(Are you sure you want to egg me on?)
I can see why stating one’s goal is a good starting point : it helps getting the right mindset to then actually work to achieve this goal. But in everything I've done, talking about something not achieved yet brings unneeded attention and stress, that one doesn’t need in his process of accomplishing something.<p>I'm not saying to hide while working on stuff, but I'm not sure making a lot of noise about it is helping the actual progress of the project.
This works, but only for natural extroverts, politicians, and DHH. For you, hacker, much better to keep a low profile until you've got something to announce.