“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”
~Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Today I was helping a friend write a job description, and I encountered the term “measurable.” It was something her organization was asking for, and while I understood the term and intent, I’m not sure that’s the real answer.
Success isn’t about whether you can have “measurable,” it’s about whether you’re accomplishing anything. I always substitute the term “goal” for measurable and it changes everything.
A measurable is something you can measure, a goal is something you’ve accomplished. Too often “measurable” is measuring activity, and not accomplishment. It doesn’t matter if you can supply a score to a basketball game without a hoop, it matters whether you score enough points to win.
That’s what goals are about, not measuring activity but measuring accomplishment.
