In this blog, I share my experiences, my road blocks, things I’m working on, where I stumble, and where I end up, in hopes you find something useful or inspiring to use in designing your own lives. Setting and achieving goals is an important element of that design.
In this particular group of posts, I’m going to focus on goals: first, self reflection and brainstorming on your way to a mission statement; second, defining goals and steps to support those objectives. Third, make your goals SMART and create the steps to get to it. Fourth, and most important, tracking as you achieve your goals.
So: goals.
I know, super exciting right? Or not. I’m positive though, that whether you are already all about goals, or feel completely directionless (and goal-less), this set of posts will help you self-reflect, organize, and start tracking to goals in both your personal and work life.
The older I get and the more I have going on in my life, the more apparent it is to me that I need to get clear on what the heck I’m spending my time on, because it is important to me that the time I spend supports what I ultimately want out of my life. I spent (and continue to spend) a significant amount of time thinking through how I can add clarity to my life and spend time on things that matter most to me. As a result, I came up with an approach that I’m sharing here. Hopefully, you will find this approach as helpful as I did in getting clarity around what you’re all about, why you’re here, and what you’re doing to support those things in your day to day life.
Ready? Strap in!
Why are goals important?
Do you consider yourself to be goal-oriented? Or wonder where your life is going, or what you’re even doing here? Do you think about what you’re spending your time on?
All of these things are why goals are important. Goals help us define what we want out of life, and measurable, achievable steps to get there. If you don’t know what you’re working towards, how will you know when you’ve achieved it? If you don’t have a clearly defined purpose, how do you know you’re spending your time wisely?
Your own personal time is your most important, inalienable, and valuable asset. What you choose to spend it on can either move you towards or away from what you want in life: whether that’s something tangible, like a new car or a dream home, or something intangible, like happiness or love.
Goals are personal and deeply intimate, because they are an expression of what you want out of life and how you plan to get there. What’s more intimate than that?
Goals that are not well-defined can also be a source of stress or anxiety. For example, you might have a vague anxiety about not being where you think you should be by this time in your life, or maybe you’re stressing out over an overdue deliverable at work. On the other hand, they can be a source of pride and accomplishment when they are achieved, just by virtue of having accomplished something. When you achieve your goals, you become more confident, have more faith in yourself, and can prove to yourself that you can do stuff. As if there’s any doubt, right?
But…how?
When planning out this series of blogs, I did a super-scientific, ultra-informal survey (read: survey link posted on Facebook) to identify what my friends, family, and coworkers struggled with when setting goals. Here’s what they said:
- More than half the people who responded said they consider themselves to be goal-oriented.
- When asked what their major obstacles were in setting goals, the top three answers were:
- Having too many goals about too many different things
- Not thinking big enough (long term or big picture)
- Figuring out the steps to accomplish them
- Some of the other pain points brought up relate to
- Motivation
- Having enough time/energy
- Lack of specificity
- Focusing too much on the end result and not the steps it takes to get there
- When asked how important they thought goals were in achieving success in life, the respondents rated it 86 out of 100 (where 100 is critical).
Mad survey skills aside, what does this mean?
It means that in my sample at least, and I suspect for many, many others, setting goals and achieving them is hard. There is no magic answer. What works for one person may not work for the next.
There is hope though! I think I have some tips to help with all of the above obstacles. In this set of posts, we will explore all of the topics mentioned above and hopefully you will come away with some concrete ways to improve how you set goals, what you focus on, and start moving you further down the path to feeling the sense of accomplishment comes from a #goalachieved.
Getting Started
Are you ready to get started? Me too.
Below are the links, in order, that explain the process I follow for my own personal goal setting. Grab a pen and a piece of paper (or tablet, laptop, napkin, whatever) and let’s get started!
- Step 1: Create a Mission. Use structured brainstorming to identify the areas of your life you care most about and want to focus on. Next, turn those items into a personal mission statement. #lifegoals!
- Step 2: Break It Down Into Goals. We will take the “brain dump” list from Step 1 and look at what we’re working on right now. We will then evaluate how each item fits into our mission statement. Lastly, we will refine our list into long, medium, and short term goals to get us what we want.
- Step 3: Make Your Goals SMART. Look at your goals and make them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based! Then create a set of steps for each goal to get you there.
- Step 4: Tracking. There are so many different ways to track your goals and progress against them. In this step we will explore a couple of options, and talk about why tracking is so important.
