DUMB goals (and why they work)

What are DUMB Goals?

What I call DUMB goals are goals for which you haven’t thought too much about how it going to work out, but start trying it anyways, and figuring it out along the way. Why its called DUMB goal is because you don’t think about if its achievable, how much time its going to take or anything. You follow your instinct and start acting on it.

DUMB stands for Destination with Unknowns to create Motion and start Building. All you need to know is you Destination, everything else doesn’t matter. In fact when you start something new you most likely don’t know enough about what you want to do to be able to define more about your goal.

Why not SMART?

But you’ve heard about SMART goals, and this seems to be in direct contradiction with it. Indeed it is. Each time the topic of SMART goal comes up I ask if it have actually ever worked for anyone participating in the conversation, and so far, I haven’t been able to find someone who actually was able to implement the SMART methodology and go through it. If you have been successful with SMART goals, please let me know, I’d be more than happy to hear about it.

Why it works

So what is it that makes DUMB goals work? For starters, it gets you started as soon as possible. There is no planning. So the first step is figuring out where you want to go and take the first action that brings you closer to your goal.

What’s the second step? Repeat first step: figure out where you want to go and take the first action to get you closer to your goal.

That’s really all there is to it. And that’s the beauty of it: it’s simple. There isn’t any overthinking, no stress, no BS.

Let it evolve

And if anywhere along the way you realize where you thought you wanted to go has actually changed. No problem, that’s part of the process. Repeat the step: figure out where you want to go (your new destination, different from your original destination) and take the first action that brings you closer to your goal.

The further you go on your DUMB journey, the more you will learn about your destination and how to get there. And as you learn more about it, you will naturally adapt your destination according to it.

The key is to get started as soon as possible, to start taking action. Those actions will bring you a lot more answers and in a shorter time than if you had to plan everything in advance without having already gone through the journey.