What is goal setting?
According to wikipedia “Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed to motivate and guide a person or group toward a goal“.
If you have not already read my previous article on how to find your vision in life, I would recommend that you do so. If you are a beginner at your exploration with Personal Development, here is an introduction that will give you the big picture.
The next step -following the definition of your vision- is to design a clear plan in order to live your life following your visions’ values and principles. That plan should contain short and long term goals which are the intermediate stations from your beginning to your vision’s destination.
The goals become your compass that will show you the way. Without goals you will wander around for days, weeks, months and years hoping that you will magically arrive at your destination.
The chances of you reaching your destination without proper guidance and direction are slim to none.
During the goal setting process you establish the route and all intermediate stations where you will have to stop, rest, review and continue. Your focus will be to travel from one intermediate station to the next one.
Your final destination will not be visible at the beginning but it does not have to be. The stations will remind you that you are heading toward the right direction.
Among other things, one of the benefits of goal setting is the fulfilment of reaching each and every station. It gives you the opportunity to enjoy every and each step of your journey, which is the journey of your life.
The common trap for all of us nowadays is that we try to give all our energy to reach a certain destination hoping that when we get there we will start enjoying life, only to find out that when we get there there is not much life left to enjoy.
Take for example those who focus only at work, working hard every day, missing opportunities of joy and fun and waiting for retirement, so that they have all the time of the world to travel and enjoy life.
What they fail to understand though is that there is no guarantee that they make it to retirement but even if they do there is no guarantee that they will be healthy enough to enjoy life as they imagine.
The alternative is to make sure that you enjoy every single moment in life and this is something that goal setting can help you with.
Short and Long Term goals
Goals can be short or long term. The definition of short and long is quite subjective but as a rule of thumb you define a long term goal as something that takes at least one year to be achieved.
A short term goal for example, would be to lose 5 kilos in the next 2 months. A long term goal would be to run a marathon in the next 12 months or to save 100K Euros for your retirement.
Long term goals require more planning and monitoring than short term goals.
For your long term goal of running a marathon you might have to create monthly short term goals like for example “10 running sessions in January”, “Participation to a 5K race in February”, “Running a total of 150 KMs in March” and so forth that will help you track your progress.
How do you define your goals?
Each of your goals either short or long term has to have certain attributes.
There is an acronym that is being used throughout the personal development universe. It is called SMART, it is easy to remember and stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Based.
The goals that you will create in order to implement your vision should conform to all 5 criteria.
Let’s try to analyze each one of them.
Specific
For each one of your goals, you need to know exactly what you are trying to achieve.
You should be as descriptive as possible in order to shed light to each shadow of doubt.
You need to ask yourself :
- why do you want it and what are you trying to achieve?
- how do you see your life changing?
- who is going to be involved?
- how will you feel when you achieve that goal?
Measurable
How will you know if you have achieved your goal or not?
You should specify some quantitative parameters for your goal. Losing weight is not really measurable. You need more specific information.
Measurable goals means that you identify exactly what it is you will see, hear and feel when you reach your goal.
Attainable
Are you ready to accept the consequences of the effort, time and resources that you will invest? Have you weighted all parameters?
Can you live with the fact that you will have to spend less time with your family? Will you and your family be able to live frugally for a long period of time in order to get the car of your dreams?
You have to make sure that your goal will not create more disbenefits than benefits and that it is sustainable and achievable in the long run.
Realistic
It is not bad to dream and think big. But there are certain limitations. Dreaming of becoming a famous basketball player at the age of 60 is not realistic. Common sense has to be applied.
Some times you will simply have to abandon a certain goal if certain prerequisites are not met and are not supposed to be met.
Time Based
Lack of deadlines feeds procrastination. You need to make sure that you know exactly when you expect your goal to be achieved.
You will also have to make sure that your deadlines are realistic. You shouldn’t expect to learn a new language in 10 days.
Examples of bad and good goals
“I want to lose weight“. We have heard or said this expression many times in our lives. But is that a goal? How will you know if that goal has been achieved?
Let’s see now, how transforming the statement above -in order to conform to all 5 criteria-, will allow you to maximize the chances of achieving it.
Supposing that it is the first of January, a well defined goal would be the following:
“I want to lose 5 kilos, until the 31st of March in order be able to participate at the lightweight boxing event in April”
Let’s see how this role conforms to the 5 criteria.
Specific : I know exactly why I want to achieve that. I want to participate to the lightweight boxing event
Measurable : I will know that I will have achieved my goal when I will be 5 kilos less as from today
Attainable : It is relatively easy to change a couple of habits in my life (nutrition and sports) without a need to sacrifice other priorities in my life.
Realistic : 5 kilos in 3 months, is translated to 1.66 kilos per month, which is around 400 grams per week. This is definitely something that can be done without risking my health or going to the extreme.
Time Based : I have set a deadline for the goal which is the 31st of March.
The chances of you achieving that goal are way better than those of the original statement since each one of those 5 criteria will boost your motivation.
Here are some more examples of well defined goals:
- [Domain : Finance] “I want until 30th June to save 1000 Euros, in order to buy a laptop to my daughter”.
- [Domain : Public Relations] “I want until 25th August to have 150 new linked in connections, so that I maximize my chances for a new job”.
- [Domain : Self Development] “I want until 30th October to have read 4 books of personal development so that I improve my skills”.
- [Domain : Health] “I want until 28th February to have done 60 meditation sessions, so that I can cope with my stress”.
- [Domain : Sports] “I want until 30th September to participate to a half-marathon race so that I improve my endurance”.
Some mistakes to avoid
- The right balance has to be found so that you are neither under nor over-committed. Committing to just one simple short-term goal for the next 12 months might not allow you to explore your full potential or reach your vision any time soon.
- On the other hand too many goals may lead to burnout that will discourage you. On average 3-4 goals are good to start with.
- Not prioritizing your life’s domains as well as the goals for those domains. Prioritizing your domains and goals will allow you to focus on those areas of your life that are more important to you.
- Not following the SMART approach. Go back and read the article again if it is still not clear why you have to apply the SMART criteria to your goals.
- Creating goals to satisfy other people but not you. Trying to make someone happy will not last in the long run since you will be trying to live a life based on the values and principles of another person.
Tools
Trello is a great tool to use for organising your goals and defining the actions’ plan that will help you achieve those goals. The tool allows you to use Boards, Lists and Cards.
Imagine the Boards being the rooms of a house (where each room can be one of your domains like Sports Room, Nutrition Room , Finance Room etc).
In each room there are various Buckets (Lists) containing your Goals (Cards). You have a “To Do” bucket, a “Doing” bucket and a “Done” Bucket.
Initially all your goals will be in the “To Do” bucket and will gradually start moving to the “Doing” and then to the “Done” Bucket.
It is very easy with Trello using “drag and drop” to move your Goals (Cards) from one Bucket (List) to another.
Coloured labels allow easy identification, administration and categorization of the cards on the Trello boards.
Notifications can be set for each goal so that reminders can be sent to you, triggering you into action.
Another very nice feature of Trello is the sharing of tasks among more than one persons allowing for accountability synergies that will motivate you and your accountability partner.
Next Steps
The next step- which is the content of the next article– is to start creating tangible tasks on your calendar for each goal you have defined.
For the goal of losing 5 kilos -that we previously used as a well defined goal- some of the tasks that you will have to define are the following:
- eat a fruit at 10 and 5 every day
- setup 3 jogging sessions in the week
- don’t skip breakfast
All these tasks should become part of your agenda and with the help of technology, you will be reminded on time to act.
Goal Setting was never as easy as it is today.
So go on, follow the guidelines of this article and see your life changing to the better.
Georgios Grigorakis