Setting Concrete Goals

Posted July 9, 2008, 3:16 p.m.

I’m learning that it’s best to set concrete, rather than nebulous, goals. For example, I’ve said many times before that I meant to write ‘more’ content for this web site. It wasn’t until I committed myself to an average of at least five entries per week that things finally changed. For some reason, a goal of five entries per week was easier to reach than a goal of ‘more’ entries.

When I bought my bike last year, I said I was going to get back into riding. Well, I sorta did. I did a few rides of 10 miles or longer before the weather turned too cold (having bought the bike at the end of the season) but then failed to pick it back up when the weather turned nice again. My bad. Well I finally went back out last week, and I apparently haven’t lost my ability (thank God). I did a 10-mile ride on Thursday evening, then a 20-mile ride on Saturday. It didn’t take a lot out of me, so now I’m setting a personal, concrete goal of riding at least 30-miles per week.

I figure that’s only a three-hour commitment (roughly) in the week, which can be met with three 10-mile rides or one 30-mile ride or any other combination. That gives me flexibility, but it is a concrete target. Let’s see how it works out.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

When you ain’t nothing else, you are an artist. It’s the one thing you can claim to be and nobody can prove you ain’t.

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.

By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.

It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong.

It has long been thought to be a well founded position, that the purse and sword ought not to be placed in the same hands in a free government.

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws . . . [that] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

When ‘the two become one’ in the covenant of marriage, the ‘one’ they become is so real that nine months later they might have to give it a name! The child embodies their covenant oneness.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

News is what somebody does not want you to print. All the rest is advertising.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.

The West is able to look at its own foibles and laugh, even make fun of its own fundamental principles. There is no Islamic equivalent to Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Can we look forward to seeing The Life of Mo anytime in the future?

One of the things that has constantly amazed me is the delight that decent people take in the ability to provide opportunities to those over whom they currently exercise authority.

Should Congress . . . pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the Government, it would become the painful duty of [the Supreme Court] to . . . say that such an act was not the law of the land.

If every man had faith, we would need no more laws. . . .

A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.