If you’ve read some blog posts of mine or watched any of my YouTube videos, you will know that I am a big fan of goal setting, time management, and all the good things that come along with that. I believe in setting attainable goals, and then figuring out systems that help with achieving goals.
Setting goals helps give you direction and structure and helps you avoid floating through life with no aim. I’ve spent hours on goal setting, so I like to think of myself as a bit of an expert in this field, and today, I want to share some tips to help you not only set goals but actually achieve them. These tips can help you achieve goals in all areas of your life – whether they be personal or professional goals.
The common misconception
Let’s address the elephant in the room: you can’t just write a dream down on a piece of paper and hope for the best. That’s wishful thinking, not goal setting.
Instead, if you plan on setting goals, you need to have a roadmap that gives you tangible steps that you can take to reach your end goal. We all know about the frantic rush to come up with some New Year’s resolutions only to have them fly out of the window by February. That’s because an idea is not a goal.
SMART goals
You’ve probably heard about SMART goals. These are the things that have been said to make a goal “good”. A SMART goal is:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-based
. . . Or smartER goals?
But why stop there?! Sure, having things like measurable goals will give you a starting point for your goals, but I like to add my own two things in my goal-setting process that take goals from being SMART to SMARTER. Those are:
- Emotion
- Reviews
Emotion
Your goals need to make you feel something. We’re all more likely to actually feel moved to do something if there’s some type of emotional attachment. If you want to be making progress in your personal and professional development, you need to set achievable goals that also ignite your emotions. Let’s take one of my past goals.
If I wanted to write the goal, it would look something like this: lose weight. Sure, that’s a goal. But after careful consideration, I realised that it wasn’t a goal that I cared about. And it’s hard to complete goals when you don’t care about them.
But do you know what’s a better goal? I want to be sculpted like a Greek god. I want a six-pack that turns heads. See the difference? Injecting some emotion makes me feel excited about the goal.
Review
Hopefully, you now know how to accurately set goals. But that’s only the start. The other thing that you need to do is to regularly review and reassess your goals. In my experience, this is the area where a lot of people fall short.
You need to stay accountable. You need to make sure that your goals are still serving you. Think of your goals as living, breathing entities that require attention and nurturing. You need to keep track of your current goals to help you with your future goals.
Let's talk structure
I think a big reason why people fail at their goals is that they get overwhelmed. If you’ve never run a day in your life, the idea of running a 10k is probably enough to make you curl up in a ball and cry.
You know what they say about eating an elephant: you go one bite at a time. Your goals are the same. Split them into easily digestible, bite-sized chunks!
I advocate for structuring your goals like this:
- Yearly
- Quarterly
- Monthly
- Weekly
This hierarchical structure helps you focus on short-term wins while still keeping sight of the bigger picture. It breaks your goals down into actionable steps that you can accomplish. Plus, it’s time-bound, which helps with motivation.
Track your goals
The human mind is great, but it does have a limited capacity for memory. Sure, you may think that you’re going to remember your goals, but that valuable memory real estate will soon be taken over by thoughts of work, your newest obsession on Netflix, and when you can go on holiday again. Balancing career goals, personal goals, and other goals can be a lot.
Therefore, you need an external system to track your goals. While good old pen and paper will do the trick, there’s no denying that technology has changed the game. I personally use Forzeit to keep track of my goals. It has an intuitive organisational and tracking experience across different platforms.
It has automated reminders, progress trackers, and more. It’s essentially your personal goal-setting assistant.
In conclusion
Goal setting can truly transform your life. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. The big thing is simply to realise how to set goals that align with the life you want, and that you can actually achieve.
It’s not just about ticking the goal off, but also about the journey. Okay, I’m done with the cliches now. I’m logging off to set some goals, and I hope you do the same!