Talk:Goal setting/Archives/2012

Macro-economical characteristics
"The position of the economy in the conjucture puts pressure or simply relieves the organization."

I'd like to completely rewrite this sentence, but I can't determine what it was intended to say.

I assume that the intended word is "conjuncture," since that's the closest thing I can find that remotely makes sense. But, even with that substitution, I can't make much sense out of it. "Puts pressure" needs a preposition, for starters. Do we mean to say the following?

"The position of the economy in the conjuncture puts pressure on, or simply relieves, the organization."

If so, I think it would help to know which conjuncture we're talking about. Is it the conjuncture of economic factors that put pressure on the organization? If so, it might be a tautology (depending on what "position of the economy" means; see below). Is there some other conjuncture that's relevant here? I'm hoping someone can explain that.

I'm also having trouble with the "or simply relieves" phrase. I'm at a disadvantage because I truly don't understand what the original sentence is supposed to mean, but, to me, "relieves" implies the opposite of "puts pressure on." How can the position of the economy do both?

Finally, what is the "position of the economy?" Is that the same as the "state of the economy?" If so, why not just stay state?

--Tedd (talk) 22:43, 11 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Based on the above and my own reading, I'm removing the following from the list of moderators, as it appears to be patent nonsense.


 * Macro-economic characteristics: The position of the economy in the conjucture puts pressure or simply relieves the organization. This means that some goals are easier set in specific macro-economical surroundings. Depression is for instance the least successful conjucturial phase for goal setting.
 * --Pnm (talk) 01:44, 5 June 2010 (UTC)


 * That success meeting goals is partially dictated by environmental factors outside the organization may be a useful fact to reincorporate, but needs a source. --Pnm (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Douglas Vermeeren
The article tells us:


 * Goal setting also requires not assed motivation. Simply setting a target may lead to progress in the desired direction, but understanding why the target is desired encourages personal investment into the achievement of the goal.  In the motivation film "The Opus" (2008), achievement expert Douglas Vermeeren explains this important principle clearly: "When people talk of clarity it often gets described as just writing down your goals. The most important element is often left out.  That is finding your motivation.  If you want to get to your goals quickly you have got to clarify on why you want it.  What does it mean to you? Why do you need it in your life? And the stronger and more important the why - the more power you will have to pursue that goal."


 * In the same film, Dr. Brandon Leach, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, cites that even if someone is largely self-motivated they still must have the necessary skill set to reach the goal they have set. Said Leach, "In my mind, it is completely preposterous to say that motivation is always the most important intangible to possess if one wants to reach a goal of theirs. It's absurd. For example, if some young child sets to be a wizard or witch and is incredibly motivated to do, it's pretty obvious to conclude that he's going to need more than this, oh so important, motivation and seven volumes of Harry Potter."

I'd never heard of "achievement expert Douglas Vermeeren" and so googled for him. Here he is. "The Opus" is his own product. He's an expert according to his own company, but there's no indication of, say, a relevant doctorate from a fully accredited university, let alone publications in peer-reviewed psychology journals. Actually his biggest achievement seems to be to have interviewed well known experts, who are all so well known that I've actually heard of one of them.

If Brandon Leach is actually a professor of psychology at Northwestern, let's hear from him directly. As it is, googling for his name and "northwestern" brings up stuff about Vermeeren and his inspirational film. Unsurprisingly, there's no mention of him where there should be.

I notice that Vermeeren pops up in various Wikipedia articles. I've just removed a gratuitous chunk about him from the article on Napoleon Hill. -- Hoary (talk) 02:17, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * As Leach also doesn't appear in the Emeritus page, I lost any sense that he's for real and am about to delete this stuff from the article. -- Hoary (talk) 16:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. Vermereen appears to be just another speaker in the goal setting space and there's no evidence he's the best. The article is too partial to advocating one expert. I'll do the edit. Lauchlanmack (talk) 09:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I came to Wikipedia to see what it said about Douglas Vermeeren after seeing a blog comment. I concluded that someone is spamming blogs leaving deceptive comments about Vermereen's most recent project, "The Opus". After further looking into Vermeeren, he appears to be a self-promoting businessman, and it wasn't clear why he or any of his projects or ideas should be mentioned in an encyclopedia article. As Hoary mentions above, there's "no indication of, say, a relevant doctorate from a fully accredited university, let alone publications in peer-reviewed psychology journals". I'd suggest removing information about him and his ideas from Wikipedia without too much consternation. - Do c  t  orW  20:16, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge proposal: Goal-setting theory
Proposal: Merge goal-setting theory into goal setting.

Rationale: As suggested in the deletion discussion. This article should be wider and more popular in scope, but can very easily accommodate the theoretical basis of goal setting. Incorporating the section layout of goal-setting theory will help restructure the remaining content in this article. --Pnm (talk) 01:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)