If you’re in partnership with someone else, whether it’s a business partnership, a friendship, or a marriage, one of the fastest and easiest ways to set mutually compatible goals is to first devise separate lists of what you want to accomplish.You can include on these lists things what you want to accomplish on your own and things what you want to accomplish in partnership. Then, compare your lists and look for all the points of intersection.

Supporting Each Other’s Separate Goals

For those items that you and your partner indicated you want to accomplish individually, look and see how amenable you are to supporting your partner’s quest. After all, if he or she wants to do something that you can’t stand, chances are you’re not going to be very supportive.

If your partner has a variety of such goals, chances are you may be headed for major friction. On the other hand, if your individual goals and your partner’s individual goals contain a number of items that both of you feel comfortable with in terms of supporting one another, then now you’re cooking with gas heat.

Goals Each of You Has for the Partnership

Next, look at the goals you’ve each selected in terms of what each of you wants to accomplish as part of the partnership. I’m hoping that you match up well here. If you don’t, no need for alarm necessarily, perhaps some of the things your partner listed represent good ideas to you and you’d be willing to add them to your list. Perhaps the reverse is true as well.

When it comes to goals that you and your partner have, the more items that make both of your lists, particularly when it comes to partnership itself, the more solid your future will be together. The goals do not need to be a one-to-one match or the mirror image of each other. You may word yours one way, and your partner may word something in a somewhat different manner. The important thing is to discover the common elements of what both of you want to do or achieve.

Goal Setting for Others

One of the myths people have about goal setting is that you personally have to set goals for yourself in order for them to be valid. This, of course, is not true. Many children have had goals set for them by their parents. Many sales representatives have had goals set for them by their sales manager. Cabinet level officers have goals set for them by the president. Indeed, the people often tell the politicians what goals they want to have achieved.

In all of these settings, the key component as to whether or not goal-oriented behavior will take effect is if the second party adopts the goal as their own. If so, then a goal imposed upon you by others can seem as if it’s been yours all along.

Okay, I’ll Adopt It

In his book, Fear Strikes Out, former Red Sox baseball player Jimmy Pearsal recounts how he suffered a mental breakdown in his rookie season. After long and engaging sessions with psychiatrists while institutionalized, Pearsal came to realize that it was his father’s goal for him to become a big league baseball player.

Pearsol’s father had been a fairly respectable sandlot player, and once he had a son, was dead bent on ensuring that the boy made it all the way to the major leagues. In this case, the father and son loved each other, but didn’t realize the ramifications of what was occurring. Through analysis, Jim learned that he had to make this goal his own in order to make it back on the field and to be able to stay there without breaking down again.

Fortunately for Jim, he had the fortitude and the skill to undertake this effort. More importantly, he concluded that it was indeed his goal to be a major league baseball player. He went on to play many more years for the Red Sox.

Fill My Shoes

Conversely, many children who attempt to live up to their parents’ expectations — goals — meet with disastrous results. For every Tiger Woods, who was successfully swinging a golf club at age two, eagerly soaking up like a sponge everything his father taught him about the game, and was the U.S. Masters Champion by age twenty-one, there are hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands, of children who have a vastly different experience. Consider the legions of children of the wealthy, the powerful, and the celebrated, or the children of sports heroes who end up rejecting the game in which their mother or father triumphed.

High expectations, No; Encouragement, Yes!

To have high expectations foisted upon you at an early age is a curse. What does work? Encouragement.

For whatever reason, if you set goals for others, especially goals that may impact the course of someone else’s life, understand on a profound level the role that encouragement plays in helping the other party to make these hopes his or her goals.

Equally important, observe the other person closely. What are his or her natural tendencies? What inborn traits, characteristics, skills and capabilities does he or she exhibit? What does he or she enjoy doing? It’s hard to know exactly what is right for another person, even when you’re a parent.