Mark Murphy argues that difficult experiences build character and reveal who your real friends are. He dismisses the law of attraction as self-indulgent, notes that SMART goals came from a 1982 consultant acronym, and cites research showing challenging, specific goals produce better results than easy ones.
1982 (invented by a consultant for a workshop).
When you take the hard out of people's lives, when you take the hard out of your own life, you never find out what you're made of. You never find out who your friends are. You never find out what your strengths are. We've completely gotten away from that particularly in parenting. But the law of attraction has basically been shown to be a fatuous, silly, self indulgent way to set goals. So let's forget about the law of attraction. Then there's smart goals. Smart Goals started with a consultant in 1982. He was going to give a workshop and just came up with this acronym and that's why it stuck around. The problem is when you use different words to mean different things you get into jargon, mishmash syndrome. An acronym means different things to different people so it's lost its impact. Locke and Latham said very conclusively the best outcomes come from challenging and specific goals and no matter how you slice smart it never says hard.
