I have a slightly different approach to goal setting than the average bear.

Im not terribly interested in accomplishing a lot of specific tasks. Im more interested in asking, Who am I becoming? and Do I like this person?

To me, these are the essential questions, the BIG ones, if you will, for these reasons:

(1) Im not asking, What do I want to be? This is an occupational query, and while its significant, its not the end result were really seeking, as I see it.

(2) Im not focused on the past, woefully wondering What have I become? The games not over; Im a work in progress.

(3) Who is about overall identity, mission, purpose, and ones personality. Its an integrating question, not a fractionalizing one. Your who? is about the whole of you, and thats much greater than the sum of your parts or your accomplishments.

Try organizing your life around who? and not what? and see how you do, overall. If youre like me, youll feel youre tapping into deeper sources of motivation, and wellsprings of personal satisfaction, instead of making yourself a success object, driven toward achievement and acquisition, but an empty cargo container, inside.

After all, when we ask the right question, the answer appears, almost magically, doesnt it?