Goal Setting Is Like
Going Shopping

Listen to anybody talking about goal setting and the majority of them will use an analogy to help explain the process and the logic behind the concept. I’m sorry to say that, in that respect, I’m no different. I find the comparison makes it easier for those listening to associate with and understand the process and also, which maybe more important, it makes things more fun.

So what analogy did I find? Hey, I’m I woman, what analogy do you think I’d find? Shopping, of course. Not the fun shopping when you spend all day strolling from one fashion shop to another, stopping only to have a tea break. No, although I’m sure there are some good comparisons there, I chose food shopping.

Now at this point, I’m sure that there are some male readers who are on the point of closing this workbook, please don’t. Bear with me, I promise it’s not going to be too girlie and it will be worth your time. And to those who I have now just offended with my stereotyping, forgive me it’s not intentional.

Anyway, back to the analogy.

It’s 4pm on Saturday afternoon, you’ve just flopped into your comfy armchair for a ten minute rest, you kick off your shoes and the phone rings. It’s an old friend, she’s in town for a couple of days and is wondering if she can come over for dinner. Without thinking you say yes, it would be great to catch up on old times. But, as soon as you hang up you realise that your fridge and pantry look as though a swarm of locusts have swept through them. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to eat.

As your heart starts pounding and your eyes flick from the fridge to the pantry as if they were watching a tennis match, you find yourself faced with four choices. But you didn’t get your friend’s number so you can’t call her back and since ordering in and eating out aren’t options in this equation you know you have to go shopping.So the question is, what happens next?


Option 1:
Without thinking and without shoes you race out the front door grabbing at your keys as you go. Charging through the electronic doors of the supermarket you grab the first trolley you find, which of course is the one with not only two spinning wheels but one jammed wheel as well.

Frantically you race down the first aisle. To your left in the pasta section, you see cannelloni is on special. You grab a packet; it’s always been your favourite anyway. Mumbling to yourself and the trolley, you decide spinach and ricotta would be an ideal filling, and so you head towards the freezer section.

Beside the frozen spinach is a sign proclaiming, “ALL ‘HEAT AND SERVE MEALS’ 20% OFF”. You stop in your tracks. Would she notice if the meal wasn’t home baked? After all, she’s coming to talk to you, isn’t she, not for an ‘a la carte’ meal?

Flinging open the freezer door you snatch up two of the frozen dinners, then two more - because who can be sure which one is really the best. But you know what? A starter would really go well with those meals. Quickly, you do a three-point turn to return the no longer needed cannelloni, narrowly missing the screaming two year old lying in the middle of the aisle pummeling the ground.

Focussing on the counter you find yourself weaving erratically around a lady giving out cooked samples of the shop’s new range of schnitzels. Your stomach rumbles and you remember you missed afternoon tea. As you pull desperately on the trolley it comes to a swerving stop, nudging only gently on the Everest-like stack of toilet rolls. You try to collect your thoughts whilst munching on the free sample, then grab a packet of the schnitzels and head towards the checkout.

Finally it’s your turn to be served and it’s then you realise that not only did you forget to pick up a starter and a dessert, but you have no vegies either. But since the store is now overcrowded with last minute shoppers, you snatch up your bag of food, run a hand through your hair and start mumbling again. ‘The baker should have a pie or danish left, the deli will have a dip or something and I can stop off at the market growers on the way home.’ AAAGHH!


Option 2:
Closing the pantry door you reach for your favourite recipe book and spend a couple of minutes flicking through the pages, before reaching for a scrap of paper and a pen. Hurriedly you write yourself a shopping list then go and find some shoes to wear. Walking through the electronic doors of the supermarket you put your hand in your pocket for your shopping list. It’s not there! You put it down when you went for shoes and didn’t pick it up again. Still, you think, it wasn’t a long list I’m sure I can remember everything.

After ten minutes you walk down the last aisle of the supermarket with your red plastic basket full of everything you need. Or is it everything?

Standing in the ‘ten items or less’ queue you mentally go through the shopping list again. You forgot the cocoa for the dessert! Smiling and with your face a little redder than usual you squeeze back out between the shoppers and checkout barriers. Meandering back down the aisles you wonder, is the cocoa in the aisle for tea and coffee or in the baking section?

Eventually you find it - in the baking section of course. Why would you have thought otherwise? And just to make the task a little bit harder for you, the cocoa company had redesigned the cover using a purple background instead of orange. So it really wasn’t your fault that you couldn’t see it on the shelf, despite the fact that you’d been staring at it for a good few minutes.

Still it was worth it because now you know you have everything you need for dinner.


Option 3:
Same as option 2 only this time you walk into the supermarket shopping list in hand. You walk over to the stack of shopping baskets, stroll down a few aisles, then breathing gently head towards the ‘ten items or less’ checkout.

Whilst waiting for your turn you muse over the strange way everything you’d needed for dinner had practically jumped off the shelf and into your basket. Humming you look back over your shoulder to see some barefooted crazy person’s trolley try to demolish a display of toilet rolls and in another aisle a traffic jam building up behind a shopper who can’t see what she’s looking for on the shelf.


Okay, so those are the scenarios - which shopper are you? Chances are that at sometime we’ve all tried each of the options.

Option 1:
Where we arrive home with almost everything we need for a perfect meal (but not quite), so the finished result isn’t quite as perfect as we’d have liked. The other problem is that shopping took longer than expected and despite our previous eagerness to share the evening with a friend, now what really appeals is a quiet evening in front of the television with our feet up.

Option 2:
We get home with all the necessary ingredients, plus a few extras because you never know what might come in handy, right? Everything looks as though it’s going to plan till we realise that the shopping took longer than we expected and in fact there’s only an hour before our friend arrives. Hardly long enough to have a shower, do a quick tidy up, get the meal prepared and look cool, calm and collected when she knocks on the door!

Option 3:
We get home relaxed and focused, prepare the food, wander around the house picking up the discarded books and lolly wrappers before hopping in the shower.


Looking at the options, which one would you prefer? Chances are Option 3 jumps out at you. I should imagine any sane person would like to make their life as smooth and stress-free as possible. So what makes Option 3 different from the other choices? A plan. Time was spent deciding what the ideal outcome was (in this case, the meal), a list was made of the items needed to make that outcome possible (the shopping list) and finally the list was on hand to be referred to (the shopping list was read in the supermarket).

It’s been proven many times over that even writing down your goals and then losing them down the back of the filing cabinet or under a stack of paper, is more productive than just storing them mentally in your head. But the studies also show that writing your goals and keeping them visible to you on a daily basis leads to greater results.

This is why goal setting is like shopping. When you decide precisely what it is that you want from the supermarket of life, chances are the ingredients will be on the shelf just waiting for you to pick them up. And if things are going really well, when you find them it will be a ‘two for the price of one’ day.

Don’t wander lost and frustrated around the supermarket of life - write your shopping list today!

Excerpt taken from Elizabeth’s Effective Goal Setting For Writers Workbook


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