The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 279 - STAR|MAP

Transcript:

Pete: Hey, Jen.

Jen: Hey, Pete.

Pete: So, it's time. It's time, it's time. It's time to record an episode on something that you have been threatening to record an episode on for I want to say years, at this point.

Jen: It is years.

Pete: You've promised me, you've promised our listeners that we would talk at some point about the STARlMAP. And I am demanding that that moment is now. I want to know what it is. I want to know what to do about it. And I want to know how to use it. So please, enlighten us on what the STARlMAP is.

Jen: Sounds like a plan. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Pete: So, I feel like I've heard you talk about...I might have been in a class when you talked about this. But like, apparently I'm a goldfish and I can't remember anything about it, other than I'm pretty sure it's an acronym.

Jen: It is. And it's a framework for purpose-driven goal setting and strategic planning. The nice thing about the STARlMAP framework is it's applicable long-term, short-term, broad, narrow.

Pete: Well, this feels well-timed, because I was just telling you actually before, I'm about to embark on a like strategic off-site for my own business where I start to goal set, goal plan, and strategically think about, "What does the next phase and evolution of my business look like?" So, I feel like this is perfectly timed.

Jen: Oh, how wonderful. Okay, so first of all, I, like I'm sure every listener out there who has ever worked in a company, was familiar with setting SMART goals, which is also an acronym.

Pete: Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-driven, Timely...is that right?

Jen: It depends on who is teaching it to you, because I've seen many different words fill up the SMART goal. And frankly, I found the SMART goal concept quite helpful, especially in the specific piece of it.

Pete: Yes.

Jen: And yet, I found myself longing for more meaning. The SMART goal was very practical, but it didn't feel purposeful to me.

Pete: Mmm. Mmm-hmm.

Jen: And I had reached a point in my life where I did not want to go after things that weren't going to give my life purpose and meaning, so I went in pursuit of a purpose-driven goal setting framework. And Peter Shepherd, do you know what I found?

Pete: Well, I'm guessing nothing, because you made your own up.

Jen: That's right. Absolutely nothing. I could not find anything out there that satisfied my needs. So you might remember, Pete, in my old office, I had a wall that was entirely whiteboard.

Pete: Yeah, I loved that thing. I remember many a whiteboarding session you and I had in there.

Jen: Yeah, it was great. It was so big. I loved it. Anyway, I started writing down everything that I thought needed to be in a purpose-driven goal setting framework. And then I started coupling themes thematically, things that I thought went together. And then I felt like I was suddenly Benedict Cumberbatch in the Sherlock Series, it's like I saw the words like move around on the board and spell out STARlMAP for me.

Pete: Huh.

Jen: And I was like, "This is great. Because ultimately, what I'm looking for is a North Star, something that guides me toward where I want to go." So, that's how I landed on the STARlMAP framework in 2019.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: I taught my first STARlMAP workshop in January 2020, Pete.

Pete: Oh dear. Ah, we were so naive.

Jen: Timely. And honestly, because I had been so focused the previous year on making sure I knew all the potential applications of this framework, I do think it's one of the reasons I was able to pivot so quickly and get everything set up during COVID in the new online studio, so that's cool.

Pete: I mean, I love it already and I can't wait to learn more. But I'm just like realizing that that was four years ago, January 2020. That is wild, that that was four years ago.

Jen: I know. That is wild. Okay. And I just have to say for myself, because I'm feeling a little out there, that this is going to be one of those episodes where after the fact, I'm like, "I was talking too much. I was talking too much. I was just, I was constantly talking."

Pete: Of course. It's a master class episode. This is where we all, me and the listeners, get to sit back and learn from Jen. It's a master class. So yes, you're going to feel like that and it's okay because it's the point, it's what I wanted to have happen.

Jen: Okay. So let me talk you through the acronym, and then we'll go through each one. And the thing is, it has most of the components you would want in a SMART goal, just with purpose added. So, S stands for Specific. T is Time-bound with a question mark after it. So, Time-bound?

Pete: Ooh.

Jen: A is Actionable. The R is Realistic, also with a question mark after it. So, Realistic?

Pete: Ooh.

Jen: And then, there is a line that separates the two words.

Pete: Huh.

Jen: And the line becomes critical.

Pete: Oh.

Jen: We'll get to the line in a minute.

Pete: So much intention, uh-huh.

Jen: The M stands for Measurable. The A is Affirmable. And the P is Purpose-driven.

Pete: Purpose-driven, alright.

Jen: So, let me go back and talk through each of these things.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Okay. When you're setting a goal, the specificity matters, because if you don't actually know what you're working toward, it's hard to build out any sort of strategy or plan or even to ask for help. There's this Lewis Carroll saying, which is, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."

Pete: Oh, that's good. That's good.

Jen: Right?

Pete: That's painful.

Jen: And so the idea with getting Specific is like as specific as possible, as nitpicky with the language as possible. Not on the first draft, but like as you progress through.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: What are you actually working toward? Then, Time-bound? The reason the question mark is there is because some goals are infinite.

Pete: Mmm. Hmm.

Jen: And if you are, for example, trying to build a closer relationship with your family, that's not really something you want to put a cap on and be like, "And I'll be done with that by April 1st."

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah. "And then, it'll be done."

Jen: So, it's worth acknowledging whether or not something is inherently time-bound or infinite. And then if something is infinite, you might want to consider building out milestones along the way, or ways to know how you're doing.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: Which is why the Measurable comes into play later. Actionable, this is, you know, we want to be able to name actual things we are able to do in pursuit of our goals. And one of the caveats I like to put in place here is when I help people build out their action items in this section, often there are things that have to get done in order to achieve the goal that are not the responsibility of the goal pursuer. So for example, you know, I work with a lot of actors, so they need their agent to do something in order to move toward the goal. But I don't want anything on your action list that isn't actually completable by you, so we would look for ways to say delegate such and such to agent, as opposed to, "It's just the agent's responsibility." So, Actionable. And then, we get to Realistic? The question mark is, "Is this realistic?" Now, with Time-bound?, you could answer either that the goal is actually time-bound or it's infinite. When we get to Realistic?, if you get a no, you've got to go back and start over. You cannot cross the line.

Pete: Oh, interesting. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200 if it's not realistic. Interesting.

Jen: So I get people to build out the S, the T, and the A, and then I'll say something like, "Is it realistic that you could complete these actions in this amount of time to achieve said goal?" And you have to be willing to tell the truth here. And if they say, "No, I actually think it might take longer than that," I'll go, "Okay, then let's go back and adjust." Or, "I don't know. Now that I'm looking at the goal, like how would I even know if it's completed," so we go back and we adjust the language. So we spend a lot of time massaging this area, so that we can get a resounding all capital letters with triple exclamation points, "YES!!!," when we get to Realistic?.

Pete: Alright, alright. I have some questions, but I'm jotting them down. I think we should get through the whole acronym and then maybe I can ask some questions.

Jen: Okay. So once you get the, "YES!!!," you get to cross the line...

Pete: Cross the line, that's great. I love that.

Jen: ...and move into the second part, which is Measurable. It's important that when you set a goal, you have a way to track your progress toward the goal. And, you know, I was saying earlier, you can apply this framework on the macro and the micro. You know, if your goal is, "I just want to clean my apartment," you know, you'll be able to measure that if the apartment is clean. But if you're going to an off-site and creating a five-year strategic plan, you really do need to have ways to know how you're progressing.

Pete: Yeah. How will you know it's working? Or how will you know you're heading towards where you want to head towards? Yeah, yeah, like landmarks or milestones. Hmmn.

Jen: Yeah. Or tracking systems, or people who you're going to check in with. You know, I find myself on a lot of my clients STARlMAPs, because, you know, the things that they've got to do are like, "Put certain pieces of material on tape." And those pieces need to be competitive. They are not able to self-assess if that is competitive, so part of how they measure this is they get input from their coaches, their agent, etc.

Pete: Yep, gotcha.

Jen: Okay, then this is where this gets kind of fun. So, the Affirmable...I usually have a visual guide for this, so I want to make sure I'm describing it in a way where the listeners can visualize this. So whatever you've written down for Specific, so let's say, "My goal that I've named is to complete twelve chapters of a book."

Pete: Mmm-hmm. Alright.

Jen: Okay? So when I get to Affirmable, I'm taking that language and I'm just adding the words, "I am ...," and then turning it into the gerund form of the verb by adding "-ing". So I say, "I am completing twelve chapters of a book." I'm affirming that I'm doing it. I'm owning that I'm doing it. And then, I put a comma. "I am completing twelve chapters of a book," and then we get to Purpose-driven, "so that fill-in-the-blank."

Pete: Nice. Oh, this is good.

Jen: And this is where you get to go on a deep dive with yourself. I find it really helpful to talk it out with someone else (like, I don't know, you) to really get some questions going. Like, "Why is writing twelve chapters of this book important to me?" And you can have multiple things here, "So that I am able to share my ideas on a broader scale. So that I can reach more people. So that I can fulfill a lifelong dream of mine to have actually completed a fucking book."

Pete: It's almost too real, this example.

Jen: Right? There are so many things that can go in there. But now, I'm realizing that the goal is actually attached to something with meaning for me. So those days where I'm feeling the slog of like, "Ugh, I need to put these words down on paper today," I go, "Oh wait. Why am I doing this?"

Pete: Right.

Jen: "What is the purpose? What is the meaning?"

Pete: Yeah. I mean, it's so good.

Jen: Thanks. It works for me. I love it.

Pete: It's so Jen Waldman. I mean, one of the reasons I like it is that it's intentionally in a certain order. Like you said, you are only allowed to cross the bridge, cross the line, if you've done the first four, and then that enables you to maybe revisit one of the first steps if you haven't quite got realistic. Like, I just love the sequential nature of it. I also like that it literally covers up everything that a SMART goal does. Like you said, it's purpose-driven SMART goals. But SMARTP or PSMART or SPMART doesn't quite roll off the tongue like a STARlMAP does. And so, a couple of reactions. The first is, I like the conclusion of like, it reminds me of tying it to one's identity. Which, you know, James Clear talks about with building habits. "I'm the kind of person who will write twelve chapters by the end of this time." Like, I love that putting yourself on the hook by adding the "-ing". "I am writing. I am doing it. Like, this is an action that I am doing." So brilliant, so brilliant. A little push-back or like question I had in my head was on the Realistic? side. I started wondering of like, "When is it (or is it never) actually beneficial to set unrealistic goals?" And maybe "unrealistic" isn't the right word. But like I was thinking about, you know, things you and I have talked about before around, "How do you set really audacious goals, that even if you don't quite achieve it, getting 60% of the way there or 80% of the way there is still a massive goal?" So if you said, "I want to write seven books," which is probably unrealistic, but you ended up writing three, then it's like, "Holy crap, you just wrote three books. Like, that's wild." So, I don't know. I'm curious for your thoughts on audacity/unrealistic, and whether there's something that's popped up for you with this.

Jen: Yeah, I've actually experienced both extreme ends of this spectrum. So on the one hand, I love a stretch goal. I love setting really high expectations for myself. And I have absolutely, even as recently as a couple weeks ago, built out a STARlMAP that had a stretch goal. And I didn't quite reach the stretch goal, but I definitely reached farther than I would have if I didn't stretch.

Pete: Right. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I was like, "I like those goals."

Jen: Oh, me too. Me too. And what I love about it (and we've talked about this a million times on this show), it's the act of the goal setting that really is the point. So if I want to write seven books and I have to actually be able to name the actions I can commit to taking in order to make that happen, I am learning so much in that process, even if I write one book.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: It's more than I would have done if I hadn't actually thought through all the things I would need to action in order to make that happen.

Pete: I agree.

Jen: And then, Pete, on the other end of the spectrum, I've had some STARlMAP sessions with clients where they're like, "I've got this twelve month thing," and we build out the whole thing, and then I make them go back and revise. And then, I say, "And is it realistic that it will take you twelve months to do that?" And they're like, "Actually, I think I could do it by the end of the week."

Pete: "Tomorrow." Yeah. Oh, I think I can relate to that. That's funny. That is funny. I remember the first prompt in the altMBA when I was a student...which is this online leadership workshop where you and I actually met, for those that don't know. There's a goal setting exercise in the first project. My goal was to start a blog. And I'd given myself, I don't know, like six months or something obnoxious to start a blog. And then I think by the end of the week, like someone in their comments had been like, "I mean, do you need six months to start this blog? Or like, could you just spin up a WordPress site now?" And literally by the end of the week, like four days later, I had spun up a WordPress site, had a blog, and I was writing posts on my blog. And I was like, "Oh, interesting." Talk about realistic in the sense that it's doable, but not realistic in the sense that it's going to take six months.

Jen: Yeah, that is pretty funny.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: That planning fallacy, it's real.

Pete: But I think your framing actually is really helpful, which is, there's different ways of framing or looking at realistic. Like, those examples where, "Is it realistic, in that I could achieve it within this timeframe? Yeah, I could do it within twelve months. But I could also do it within a week."

Jen: Right.

Pete: So like, the Realistic? is, "Is it realistically going to take twelve months?" I love that like shift on, it's not about setting a goal that you could achieve in a week and giving yourself twelve months. It's like, if you're going to use twelve months, then set a goal that's timely within that twelve months. I hope I'm making sense.

Jen: You are.

Pete: It makes sense in my brain. I feel like I'm finally understanding the beauty of the R in your STARlMAP.

Jen: Okay. Let me share one other example that came up this week, when someone was like, "It feels like maybe you should only use this if you're working to build out like a really big project. Like, do really need to go through all of these steps?" So we took an example from this person's recent experience, where they needed to have a difficult conversation with someone on their team, in this particular scenario it was their agent. And they didn't want to do it. So I said, "Let's run it through the STARlMAP. Okay, so the specific goal is," I said, "let's not even say, 'Have the conversation,' let's just say, 'Schedule the conversation.' So, the goal is to schedule a conversation with your agent."

Pete: Nice. So small.

Jen: Yeah. "So, time-bound?” “Yes.” “So, by when?" "Okay, well, I want to send the email out today, and it might take them twenty-four hours to get back to me. So by tomorrow, end of day tomorrow." "Okay. So by end of day tomorrow, what is the action you need to take?" "I need to actually write the email and send it." "Okay. So is it realistic that you can write an email and send it, so that by end of day tomorrow, you will have scheduled a meeting with your agent?" And you could just sort of like feel the weight go off, and they were like, "Yes, I could. The thing that's holding me back is my fear, but I can do this." So then, we got to measurable. "How will you know if this has happened?" "I'll get the confirmation on my calendar." "Okay, so that's the measurement. So, now we say affirmable." "I am scheduling a meeting with my agent." "Purpose-driven, so that what?" "So that we can align on the same page. So that we can build rapport. So that we can get to know each other better. So that we can open up the lines of communication." So that took us right now a minute, but it helps so much to clarify what is actually going on.

Pete: That's brilliant. I think that that's such a good example to call out, because I feel like a lot of us when we think goal setting, we think, "Oh, there's an acronym and it's got seven letters. I've got to step through seven letters? Like, this would want to be worth it because it's going to take me hours or days or I need like a full off-site to be able to go through this." (Hello, Pete. I'm calling you out.) And yet, like you said, this could be done on the micro for, "What does it look like to schedule a conversation with my agent?" Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Well, you didn't disappoint, Jennifer. You did not disappoint. A tactical question: Are you like a, "Give me an A3 piece of paper to map this out?" Are you like a, "I want a whiteboard?" What's the best format you've found?

Jen: I don't think there is a best. It depends on how pretty you like things or how methodical you like things. For me, I just like to work in a Google Doc. I have some clients who have done this as collages. I had someone the other day send me a mind map that they had done. I had someone else design a beautiful STARlMAP document on Canva, with graphics and different fonts and colors. And I've also taken one of those gigantic post-it notes. You know the like three feet by four feet post-it notes? When I do STARlMAP sessions with clients, that's what I do, so they can roll them up and take them home. And I have a client who put her STARlMAP gigantic post-its on her wall and looked at them every day until she really was able to internalize what she was working toward.

Pete: Nice.

Jen: And by the way, that was a three year STARlMAP.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: And so, this was 2020...January of 2020. Goal completed.

Pete: Nice. Alright, well, I'm taking inspiration from this.

Jen: It included a graduate degree.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: Which, she completed.

Pete: Oh, that's so good. Well, consider me inspired. Consider me fired up. Consider me STARlMAP'd. I'm a convert. I'm on board. I'm going to buy some A3 bits of paper and some textas, and I'm going to start my STARlMAP journey. Thanks, Jen.

Jen: Thanks for letting me share it, Pete. It feels crazy to have done it in this number of minutes. But hopefully, it gives people a jumpstart to, at the very least, start thinking about goal setting in a new and purpose-driven way.

Pete: And that is The Long and The Short Of It.