The Real Secret To Effective Goal Setting
Intro
So many people fail to reach their goals because they didn’t plan. They talk about ‘living the dream’ as though it were an impossible fantasy instead of an achievable goal.
But you don’t need a Fairy Godmother or a magic wand to change your life. The Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu said ‘the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.’ So it is with your Big Goal.
People’s life goals vary. Perhaps you might want to lose that extra Christmas weight or change careers or learn a new language.
You can achieve whatever you want if you approach it as a project, and can turn it from climbing a high mountain into a series of small hills.
And you already do this every day for work projects, student essays, or dinner parties. Achieving your personal goals uses just the same process and attitude. Here are five key techniques to follow to keep you on track.
Focus your energy
Commit to one or two big goals for the year and focus your energy on achieving those.
Don’t try and do everything at once.
If you spread yourself across half a dozen goals, you will run out of energy and enthusiasm very quickly, and most likely not achieve any of them.
Choose to focus on your current priority issues. Choose one career-focused goal and one personal development or health goal.
These should be stretch goals that require a year to accomplish and that feel exciting. Make them things you would be proud to achieve.
Be clear on what your goal is. Goals are not the same as desires or intentions, and vague goals will be difficult to measure and achieve.
Goals such as “Getting fit,’ ‘losing weight,’ ‘getting rich,’ or ‘going on vacation’ are all too vague.
Try changing them to ‘running a marathon,’ ‘losing thirty pounds,’ ‘doubling my client list,’ or ‘to spend my birthday in Paris.’ These are all tangible, measurable, and achievable goals.
Break it down
Create a success path for yourself by breaking down your big goal into smaller milestones. It might help to think of them as stepping stones to reach your goal.
Underneath your big goals for the year you can have a bunch of smaller changes, each helping you to meet the principal objectives.
For example, a change in diet if your big goal is to lose weight.
Writing down your goals and sub-goals can have a significant impact on how likely you are to achieve them.
A Harvard study, which tracked students over ten years, found that the students who wrote down their goals earned ten times as much as students who either had goals but didn’t write them down or who didn’t have goals at all.
So, get a sheet of paper and a pen and write your Big Goal at the top. Then list the months and write one sub-goal under each month. It’s important that you think about sequencing when you work on your sub-goals.
Your weekly and monthly goals should follow a logical order to enable you to reach your Big Goal. You will end up with a map that points you straight toward achieving your Big Goal by the end of the year.
For example, if your Big Goal is to get from couch potato to running that marathon, monthly goals will include things like:
- Preparation
- Finding a coach
- Joining a local running club
- Researching and signing up for fun runs and half-marathons
- Blocking in increasingly longer and longer runs
- Signing up for your full marathon
Once you have your monthly sub-goals listed and in the order that feels right, you can go down a level and work out weekly goals to help you hit your monthly goals. These can go straight into your planner, diary, or goal tracking app.
So, for the first monthly goal of preparation, you could list
- Getting health checks and fitness assessments
- Getting fitted for good running shoes
- Getting into a daily walking/running routine
- Researching half-marathons and fun runs over the year and their sign-up dates.
You can see how taking it one step at a time will lead you to success and hitting your Big Goal by the end of the year.
If your goal is to get a promotion, you need to schedule in mentoring or coaching sessions, training to fill your skills gaps, and some stretch projects to be promotion-ready.
Spending your birthday in Paris needs sub-goals of researching flight and accommodation costs, applying for leave, strategies to quarantine your savings, booking tickets, and deciding what champagne to drink on your birthday!
Track today
If you don’t focus on what you need to do today, you’ll never get to achieve your weekly or monthly goals, never mind your big year goal.
The crunching down process of monthly and weekly sub-goals makes your big goal achievable by breaking it down into doable tasks that are not overwhelming.
The risk in focusing on the daily to-do list is that you’ll get lost in the details and end up with long lists of small actions that get repeated over and over again.
That is where you need to prioritize and keep your eye on the big prize. Keep the line of sight on the yearly and monthly goals – write them on a post-it note and stick it on your computer.
Type it into the banner on your calendar.
It will help if you commit to taking control of your time. First thing every day write down three priority tasks that you will achieve that day, no matter what. Complete these three tasks before you do anything else, especially before you get distracted by emails or other time-greedy tasks.
Make sure that at least one priority task relates to your weekly sub-goal. If your Big Goal is about fitness, you might include something like running, swimming, going to the gym, or another activity task.
It might be helpful to have a list of the everyday tasks that you just have to do but don’t necessarily lead straight to your yearly goal. Your day will always have a regular bunch of actions like staff meetings, email checking, buy groceries.
You acknowledge they’re there but don’t get distracted by them. They’re necessary but not your top energy priority.
Clear your path
To meet your goal, you need to work out some of the things that are currently holding you back. What do you need to get to your goal?
You wouldn’t set off on a hike through the mountains without equipment to keep you warm, fed and going in the right direction. So think broadly and make sure you have the best gear possible to help you make it to the top.
Your ‘equipment’ can fall into four categories:
Planning tools
When choosing a planning or organizational tool, there’s a vast choice available. You might like the visual of a wall planner, or the cross-interface of a smartphone goal-tracking app.
The important thing is to use the right one for you, so you can build in your goals and sub-goals and track your progress.
Skills and knowledge
Do a proper gap analysis to see if you have the skills and knowledge you need. Are you goal-ready? Do you need some extra training to give you the edge over your competition?
Are your qualifications up to date?
Could your resume do with a polish?
Perhaps a mentor or life coach could help.
Support team
To reach your goal you need to surround yourself with people who will encourage and support you on your journey.
Your support network can include friends, family, and colleagues who will cheer you on and help you when things get tough.
Connect with a coach, mentor, or buddy who will be beside you all the way.
Rewards
Psychology might seem like an odd piece of ‘equipment,’ but your brain is a powerful tool to help you reach your goals.
Whenever you succeed in reaching a goal, your brain releases the feel-good chemicals serotonin and dopamine.
They form a chemical wave of high-fives to energize and motivate you! Trigger those chemical waves by noticing progress and celebrating milestones. Build rewards into your monthly and weekly plans, and feel your confidence grow as you hit your milestones.
Check-in
It’s good business practice to regularly review, evaluate, adjust and adapt depending on changing environments.
Do the same as you do when you’re in the office. Schedule regular reviews to make sure you’re on-track to accomplish your Big Goal.
By building in routine evaluation and adjustment sessions, you will keep the momentum going and not lose enthusiasm. You’ll also see the progress you’re making.
There is no reason why you shouldn’t dream big. Your goals should light up your heart and make you feel excited and energized.
Know that you can live your dream if you plan carefully and follow your map of milestones. Commit to making your dream a reality and celebrate every success on the way there.
By breaking your journey into monthly and weekly sub-goals, you’ll be celebrating your promotion, running that race or drinking that champagne in Paris before you know it!
