What do you expect to get out of your work? What do you hope to accomplish today? What would you like to have done by the end of this year? If you want any of these expectations and wishes to succeed, you need to set yourself goals. Goal setting not only establishes focus and direction in your life, it also provides you with a benchmark to determine whether you are succeeding the way you want to or just wasting time.
Goal setting isn’t as simple as making a list of things you want to do. It starts with careful meditation on what it is that you want to achieve and is followed by a lot of hard work to actually make it happen. Following are five golden rules of goal setting.
Motivate yourself
Motivation is crucial to achieving goals. When you are setting goals, make sure they are important to you and that their achievement will give you value. When the outcome seems irrelevant to the bigger picture of your life from the get go, you will be less inclined to putting in the work required to make it happen. Goal achievement requires devotion and commitment; in order to increase the chances of success you need to feel the urgency and necessity of the achievement.
A sure path to disappointment and frustration is setting yourself goals that are not related to the big priorities in your life – you are basically setting yourself up for failure because the likelihood is that you will frequently put off necessary work for day to day priorities.
Set SMART goals
In order to give your goals the best chance at success, they need to be designed to be SMART. While there are a few different versions of what SMART stands for, it is essentially what a good goal should be: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Specific goals: Your goal has to be clear and well defined – vague goals lack in focus and direction, which is contrary to the point of goal setting. Goals need to reflect the path you need to take, make sure you don’t end up getting lost along the way.
Measurable goals: One needs to measure their goals to assess their degree of success. This is why you need to include exact amounts and dates in your goals. For example: if you are planning to save more money this month, how will you know if you have achieved your goal unless you have a specific amount that you aim to save?
Attainable goals: If you set far-fetched unattainable goals, you will only demoralise yourself and lose your confidence when you fail to achieve them. Set yourself realistic goals. However, setting goals that are easy is also not recommended. A 2006 study called New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory suggests that ambitious goals lead to a higher level of performance than easy or general goals.
Relevant goals: Setting yourself lots of different kinds of goals that have little to do with the direction you want your life and career to ultimately take will only derail you on your path. Keep your goals aligned with the direction you want to take, and you will develop focus along the way.
Time-bound goals: This is another benchmark to gauge the degree of success of your goal. Your goals should always have a deadline. Working under a deadline will help you develop a sense of urgency and accelerate a goal’s achievement.
Write it down
Put your goals in writing – make it a tangible thing you see everyday instead of something in the back of your head. Write them in firm and positive language such as “will” instead of “would like to”. A goal such as “I will meet all my deadlines this week” is more motivating than “I will not miss deadlines this week.”
Have a plan
This is a step often missed in goal setting – most people are prone to getting so obsessed with the ultimate goal that they miss planning a step by step process to achieving the goal. It’s not necessary for the small day to day goals, but it is especially important for demanding and long-term goals. If you have a step by step plan, you will be aware of your progress along the way to your ultimate goal.
Stay focused
Goal setting is an on-going process and not a onetime activity. For higher chances of success, review your goals regularly; ask yourself if you are happy with the progress and course that you are taking. The end game remains the same but the action plan to get there may have to adapt to circumstances or change entirely for definite chances of achieving the goal.
Goal setting entails a lot more than simply saying you want something to happen in your life. If you do not visibly identify exactly what you want and understand why you want it in the first place, your likelihood of succeeding at achieving them are significantly reduced. By following the five golden rules of goal setting you can set goals with conviction and ultimately enjoy the pleasure of knowing that you have successfully achieved what you set out to achieve.
