Checklisting Europe | An Accidental Goal That Works

Checklisting Europe | An Accidental Goal That Works

So you want to visit a new country each month for 12 months and later on to see every country of Europe or any continent.

First you lay out an annual calendar and marked all public holidays on it.

One habit I picked up from the Czechs beside their “irritating” planning was their utilizing of public holiday. When there is a public holiday, Czechs people will take an extra or a couple days off to extend their personal holiday and call it “long weekend”. I didn’t notice this in my first two years here because first of all I’m Asian, and second I’m American. Asians don’t have a concept of holiday. Americans either don’t have or don’t take holiday. Combine these two and you’ll have a home-bound workaholic.I usually learned about the holiday a few days before when someone asked if I had any “plan” to do something. Only then I remembered “It’s coming already?” I didn’t travel a lot then, thus not wisely spending time didn’t bother me when I didn’t go anywhere on my day off.

When I decided to go out of the Czech Republic every month and then later everywhere, suddenly I needed all the free time I could get.

With the public-holiday-filled calendar, you can then throw in a sample of potential countries then assigned your allowed personal-vacation days to each month. If that month’s trip includes multiple destinations, then maybe you want to take a longer vacation. If it is a one-city destination, then a longer weekend will be sufficient.

(By the way, grab some hand-made calendar here.)

You would think that having many places to go would turn your life in disorder and make yiour messy head messier. It isn’t. Surprisingly, it is the opposite. You don’t have to think where to go, when to go and what to do on your time off. You already have a one-year plan and only need to get everything in order like arranging transportation, booking accommodation and narrowing down on specific destinations.

You will become more organized and single-minded even if by nature you are disorganized and scatter-brained.

Do you know why? It is something very simple which you have probably known all a long.

I Guess That’s Why They Call It SMART

You have set a goal.

Back when I decided to see a new country each month for 12 months in 2009, I didn’t really think it was a goal. It was just something I wanted to do. The nature of what I wanted to do happened to be very precise and specific. Therefore not only I set a goal. I had set a SMART goal.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.

It’s a mouthful I know, but it works.

• Specific: What exactly do you hope to achieve? What is your statement? “I want to travel more” is too vague. “I want to travel more in year 2009” is a bit more specific but not specific enough. “I want to see at least one country every month for a year” is specific.
• Measurable: The goal needs to be quantifiable so you can set concrete data to track progress. “1 country per month for 12 months” is certainly measurable. I can track the progress easily just by asking myself at the end of each month “Did I go somewhere new or did I not?”
• Action-oriented: You have to explain how to accomplish the goal. Again it was easy for me to come up with a course of action. All I needed to do was going there.
• Realistic: Your goal should be challenging enough but also realistic. (Don’t worry if others think it isn’t because what’s realistic for you might be unrealistic for others and vice versa.) I lived in Europe, precisely in Central Europe. It was relative easy for me to travel anywhere in this continent. The close distance plus my new-found planning obsession made this goal achievable.
• Time-bound: Your goals should include a time limit. A specific goal will have a time frame to ground it; by when you know that you have achieved the goal. In my case it was until the end of December of 2009.

Write the Goal Down

While I stress the specific, quantifiable, time-bound traits of a goal, I also want to highlight another reason. Anything that exists in your head regardless how SMART you make it is still unreal. Sooner or later you’ll forget it because it doesn’t exist. You need to write it down or in today’s world, type it down. Again in the beginning, I didn’t type down the goal down because I heeded the advice of wise men before me to writing thing down.

I compiled a list of all European countries only to see which one I would need to go next. I thought I had seen a lot and only needed one more year to see the rest of it. But when I wrote down all 50 countries and crossed out where I had been, I realized “Holly cow, there were many more than I thought.” A year would not do it.

We all know Europe. We all know roughly how many in it. We probably can name all of the countries in it. But seriously for me, seeing the list made it more real. The names of the countries became cemented in my memory. Just seeing the name motivated me to want to go there.

What do you do after writing your goal down?

You look at it, sleep with it and sing it like I took my goal in the form of a country list to bed and recited it every night: “Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Bulgaria…” and the next night “Georgia, Armenia, Macedonia.” Abracadabra!!!

Make the Goal Public

Nah. You didn’t believe it didn’t you? I didn’t chant my Euro list at night. I made it public, and making anything public nowadays is as easy as switching on the computer and typing one sentence. I spammed my Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus accounts. Heck, I slipped it to strangers I just met. “Hey you know what? I’m going to do this.” I didn’t think they cared about it and neither did I.

The truth is the more you tell others what you intend to do; you’re more likely to do it. You’re more likely to do because you are now held accountable by not only you but by other people. As humans, we want to keep our words and behaviors consistent. If you keep what you want to do to yourself, unless you’re a super disciplined freak, you’re likely to let it slip away out of sight.

[photo credit: goinghometoroost, gian?merz, kristabaltroka]