Goal Lists

Something that I have resisted for quite some time is the Excel goal list. There's something about putting my life desires on a spreadsheet that makes them seem, well, mechanical. While that isn't necessarily a bad thing, my creative side still cringes at the thought. However, today, I finally sat down and made some initial lists for a handful of areas of my life.

Oprah.com recommends only 5 of each Must Have/Can't Stands for your love life (first thing in my search), I think it's important to get everything out there and then whittle it down to your priorities. Let's be honest, (1) single, (2) straight, (3) female, (4) smart and (5) attractive doesn't really start to scratch the surface of an ideal mate. (What qualifies as smart or attractive, anyway? What about location?) What the "Limit 5" is really doing is keeping overly restrictive requirements out of the equation. For instance, if I would only date women shorter than 5' 2", that would be a severe limitation. The purpose of these lists is to identify the spirit of what I'm looking for, so I know when something similar comes along.

These lists, in their longer forms, also get you to think about what is truly required to reach your goals. For instance, how would I like to acquire my new puppy? Not anytime soon :-( Keeping the lists together also encourage me to think of other things to pursue, such as maybe a literary agent. And, I've also set up the lists to be compatible for binary analysis at some point down the road.