It started around 1968, IIRC. It quickly became the source code for the young people of the LDS church (as it was called back then). We had monthly meetings with the ward leaders to review our current lists of goals.

No one ever tried to do a follow-up to see if we were meeting those goals, and what they could do to help. In my experience, the whole point was to impress the adults by setting the loftiest goals imaginable. Then their work was finished.

Any thoughts?

I remember in the 70's that seminary and YW teachers stressed goals, goals, goals. They made us feel like we would be failures if we didn't achieve a bunch of lofty goals in the future. I felt that God would look down on me as a loser if I wasn't a "success" before age thirty.

I remember that. Doesn't it still?

Every prophet guy has to come up with some kind of motivational/policy gimmick like that to create some kind of "legacy" and make people think that he's making a difference by revealing things of importance.

Of course, they never turn out to be anything more profound or inspired than what you could easily expect from a regional Booger King manager.

Message from Bob Bigbelly (Regional Manager) to all employees: We are starting a new "Clean 5 Things" program to help improve sanitation practices. Many employees forget to practice good sanitation practices during the course of the workday. Management believes this can be corrected if each employee will make a point of cleaning 5 things every hour and keep a checklist to go over with the store manager at the end of each shift."

This is basically what the Churchco leaders do. The only difference is that the members have to pretend that it's all divine inspiration from Gawd Awmighty. Like: "Whoa! Who knew that a person could set goals? Who even knew about the concept of goals? I'm so grateful that we are led by a prophet in these latter days!"

Remember Spencer W. Kimball's gimmicks:

"Get a round to it!" (A little circle with the words "to it!" written the middle. See how clever and inspired that is. Now that you've got a "round to it!" hah, hah, hardeeharhar! You have no excuse for forgetting not to procrastinate...except for the fact that thinking about the childish "round to it!" gimmick probably made you forget the more important things that you were planning to do before some slack-jawed Sunday School teacher shoved that round piece of construction paper in your face.

Then there was Kimball's famous prophetic profundity that everyone repeated for years: "A goal not written is only a wish." Ooooh! That's soooo deep! Problem is that every time someone said that to me, my first thought was always: "Yeah...and a goal that is written is only a written wish. So what now?"

I remember my last year of high school the bishop set goals for me. Including reading all four standard works.

I told him I'd not be meeting those goals because of school and family commitments.

A year later he asked my progress.

I told him. Last year I told you I'd not be meeting those goals and why. You didn't listen to me. I've not met those goals. I had other priorities.

He looked totally shocked.

My l d s grandmother nabbed some young womens goal setting workbooks in the late sixties.... she sat my beside her work table in her library /a floor of her 3 story home./ she would be reading or finishing forms and have me read the sentence/ writing prompts out loud and figure out answers with me after I'd guessed. I was 8 years old off t hf e ranch visiting grandma in town in her big tall house.

By the time I was 12 or 13 grandma and Id finished a stack of pretty goal setting workbooks with lots of flowers graphics from the church

I credit that grandma for me getting through . Life. And college. And the thing is

It was about learning to set goals for yourself (that's what grandma said as we filled out the workbook together guessing answers. Changing them she showed me her various collections and talked about goals, like traveling collecting specific barbed wire.) No one set a goal for me and no one set a goal for grandma that she hadn't set for herself such as how many books she could find on world war II (which fascinated her, she showed me ration books) ... no priesthood holder or my non member father set goals for me in an interview or a class I think it was done by the time I entered young womens. Lucky me. Wild strong willful grandma who sat in the back reading romance novels and murder mysteries during fast and testimony meeting

Girls so the stake president said I could go to stake young adult singles activities instead with the young womens president who was college age. I taught primary all through high school instead there was no young womens class in the branch my 9, 10 or 11 grade years, as I recall In 12 grade they got a beehive, I would not hang out with her lol I couldn't care less. I have no idea what goals anyone set for lds teens in town. I was sent to multistake choirs dances young adult firesides retreats in mountains instead. Driving to pick up the single adults along the 30 plus miles through farms and one service station 'towns' from one end of the branch to the next ward on the way to an established other stakes young adult event.... then wend our way back through the night in a Chevy sports car or litle Toyota or ____'s Cadillac sedan , drive an additional 17 miles past the branch boundary south to the only drive through open past 1 am for French fries on a late night with the young womens president driving who still lived at home with her parents in the branch. That was young womens to me. Goals were from my grandma. I'm sure they didnt bring me to everything they did together in town at college & work when I was in class at high school, my young womens president didnt care about band practice or play reversals or homework she was on a mission there was a single adult fireside 30 miles south east at 7:30 ! And we were going! She owned my weekends for many years, she directed my summer nights around my forest service schedule in the last years of high school. It was like having a commander of fun it was righteous to dance. So stern: you must attend we are going to a potluck social.
Lol

And that's how I became me I guess. 2 years of home study seminary timing scripture chases by myself in a 2 hour work session on the weekend, lol carefully praying and bowing my head before I started another days lesson ( it pray) lol. I think I paid for it/
I guess my young womens presidents calendaring taking ne with branch single adults e everywhere in 3 states ya events , was like a shock course in social skills a resource teacher could only dream about for the aspergers awkwardness farm isolated 12 mile school bus riders life which was mine. Amen alelujah
Thank God for grandmas like mine. And her funny workbooks of goals. Imagine my life without her <level of functioning would go to - itd be so low.>

And when I was a leader in young women's, they had NEW goal books coming out that took a long time to get. They didn't even have lesson manuals yet--the new ones--when they called me into YW. It showed me how much they love the girls. So we finally got goal books.

I found them to be stupid. Make the girls set a goal to babysit younger siblings. I'd go down the list and ask the girls, "Do you babysit your younger siblings?" Yep. Okay. And I'd sign it off. They had busy enough lives and all this busy work was just making them stressed out at a difficult time in life--12 and 13 years old. I think I shocked the girls. They'd never had a leader like me before!!! There were 23 of them.

Personal Progress books in the 1990s. I hated goals. I do not set goals for myself any longer except maybe I'll do this much cleaning and then I'll stop. I failed at being a goal setter. I accomplish a lot in life--so I guess I did okay. I was taught to WORK by a farmer father. I don't do a lot of sitting around.

Well, yeah, I remember the craze.

Not that setting goals is a bad thing...in fact it's very good.
It's just that when mormons do it, they act like they invented goal-setting. Like it was a revelation from Elohim.
When in reality, some fossil GA probably read some self-help book, and decided "this is what we need to do in order to do the lard's work!" And suddenly it's an inspired policy.

Like everything else in mormonism, it's stolen from other sources. And promoted as the holiest, bestest new thing ever. And then when it doesn't work out as they hoped, it's ditched and they come up with something else (like cleaning the bathrooms!)...

The whole craze was to make you feel inadequate and defective so that you would come running to mormonism to fix you.

Oh, that omnipresent book "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" and the goal-setting business empire that it spawned in the 1990s! I could never even finish the book, but I remember one was supposed to spend some time dutifully "Sharpening the Saw" as one of the habits. That meant something or other, maybe briefly resting in order to come back sharper and more goal-oriented then ever.

I think the author was LDS, wasn't he?

I remember if you didn't have goals you were a lost cause or lost soul in their eyes. Got to have those religious goals first because no other goals matter. Stay in the cult with callings till death, with becoming a bishop as the highest goal possible.

I think the church slowly moved away from some certain types of goal setting. They used to announce a monthly report during opening PH meeting about the specific numbers of baptisms, iniatories, and endowments. Based on those numbers (lifted straight from your assigned temple), each quorum would set goals to meet or exceed those target numbers.

Sometime in the 1980s, the church started to withhold those specific numbers of temple work. Yet, the local leaders started to complain about low temple attendance and urged members to get with it to attend.

My Dad, who was barely attending church and the EQ secretary, boldly questioned the Bishop. He asked in front of the group, "If temple attendance is low this year, what were the temple attendance figures from the previous year?"

Naturally, that put the Bishop on the defensive. "Um..um.."

The bishop turned around as if he was looking for somebody to help him out. Finally the HP group leader blurted out.

"We don't know Brother Goop. The temple no longer keeps track of that data. But it's low. And we all need to go. This is what we've been asked."

This type of logic bugged the hell out of my Dad. He often complained to me that so much time was wasted setting poorly created goals that accomplished nothing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2018 01:51AM by messygoop.

It kind of reminds me of corporate trends. Corporations always want their minions improving, so they'll make you list out SMART goals. Sometimes they are tied to bonuses etc.

Too bad LDS churches don't give out bonuses.

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> In my experience, the whole point was to
> impress the adults by setting the loftiest goals
> imaginable. Then their work was finished.
>
> Any thoughts?

Sounds exact like the culture at a local school in which I am a teacher, parent, or otherwise affiliated. YOU SEE? THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!! Only a church led by Jesus Christ himself through a living prophet could be so far ahead of its time.

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It started around 1968, IIRC. It quickly became
> the source code for the young people of the LDS
> church (as it was called back then). We had
> monthly meetings with the ward leaders to review
> our current lists of goals.
>
> No one ever tried to do a follow-up to see if we
> were meeting those goals, and what they could do
> to help. In my experience, the whole point was to
> impress the adults by setting the loftiest goals
> imaginable. Then their work was finished.
>
> Any thoughts?

This mind set was a result of the book "The Richest Man In Babylon" written by George S. Clason in 1926. It was one of the earliest self help books. I have a copy. In it he does propose that agoal is only a wish until it is written down.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2018 10:31PM by thedesertrat1.

How did it become part of Mormon theology at that time?

Do you recall the book," Added Upon" by Nephi Anderson? (cp 1898 although I read the 1900 or 1912 version. Frayed blue cloth hard cover. I may have it in the garage.) Anyways, this book talked about a magical being added upon in layers over time, or life time, or between life times, in eternity. Plus to eternal love t/theme.

Anyways, making goals it is about autonomy from destined fate adding upon or not additing positive magical layers upon anyone.... so instead of waiting, until between lives or after death to be added upon, or mystically magically being added upon by the spirit or god's whimsy ( you can imagine the irate agonizing " why didn't god add upon ME" just like "why didn't god answer prayers for ME" or get a mirace etc. just like now- in all churches and even on this board [at times] this is normal its our humaness. Something about Added upon is the story of mystery and gaining neat layers of spiritual gifts of love as a passivity in some indirect spiritual factory ordering system with one as a participant on the conveyer belt. Sort of like the calvinest 'elect (unchosen mystery of luck) saved by grace, elect called' on speed dial; a mormon system.

The goals proferred by whomever first, put it off the 'elect' 'wait and see mystery are you the lucky ones' to some form of individual advocacy, self autonomy chasing one's spiritual capacity or building one's spiritual form. Rather than receiving it passively by grace through election. That might have antagonized our protestant ancestory more than anything about last century's mormonism.