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“You should definitely write down your goals”—that’s what personal effectiveness coaches, books, and even neighbors who like to surf the Internet tell us. Yes, goals need to be written down. But how to do that? After all, goals are different.
I have tried many goal setting techniques throughout my life. I wrote down 100 goals for life, set them for 3 years, and described the goals in detail in the form of affirmations. All this did not catch on. And if you also haven’t found a suitable way to set and achieve goals, then read this article to the end.
Why you need to set goals
Goals need to be set in order to realize desires and build your life brick by brick. This seems to be clear to everyone. While you are still a nobody and are at the start, the goal allows you not to sour and hold your tail with a pistol. It is easier to overcome the distance when the cherished finish looms on the horizon and you know where you are running.
However, there are several other functions of goal setting that most people are not even aware of. Let's imagine two hypothetical millionaires. One earned his millions by working hard and improving, while the other inherited them from his parents. Which of them do you think will be more satisfied with life?
At first glance, there shouldn’t be much difference, because both can afford the same high standard of living. But still this is not so. The subjective level of happiness is determined not by external conditions, but by the amount of energy and vitality. And their level depends on special hormones that the brain secretes - serotonin, dopamine and endorphin. You can swim in money and at the same time vegetate in apathy, having no desires, no joy, no taste for life.
External well-being does not equal happiness.
Every person has access to the treasured hormones. The brain generously rewards successful and fruitful activity. This is exactly how the evolutionary mechanism responsible for the development of humanity works.
Roughly speaking, when you do something and receive positive feedback, your energy potential accumulates. You feel a surge of strength, inspiration and desire to conquer the next milestone, which increases with each new victory. Goals help your brain evaluate your progress and reward you for every achievement.
Set up regular checks
When you set out to do something new, you get a rush of adrenaline and a feeling of excitement.
But, it is enough to move a couple of steps forward and this feeling begins to disappear. This is the reason why so many New Year's resolutions are never implemented or are pushed back to February.
Any goal worth achieving is not realized in an instant. It takes time. To achieve results, it is important to regularly check progress , each time to make sure that you or your team are on track.
The possibility of feedback from the world, the presence of repeated reminders, will allow you to be motivated to achieve your goal. This is very important for large tasks that take months or years to complete.
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Factors that hinder goal setting
Let's look at the main internal obstacles that prevent us from effectively setting goals.
Negative experience
If you have previously set goals and failed to achieve them, you may develop a subconscious fear of new goals. It seems that the negative experience will be repeated again and will hurt your self-esteem.
In this case, you need to seriously analyze the reasons for the failures and work on the mistakes. Think back to one of your unachieved goals and think about what went wrong with it. Maybe she was too unrealistic? Or have you allocated little time to complete it? Try to take these nuances into account in the future and not repeat mistakes.
Every time you feel resistance when trying to formulate a goal, overcome it with an effort of will. Take a particularly responsible approach to your first goals after the break. They should not be too complex and not too distant in time. So that you get results and a supply of motivation for the following goals as quickly as possible.
Lack of self-confidence
Many people deliberately do not set goals because they do not believe in the possibility of their implementation. This avoidance is called a loser complex and is quite common in anxious, infantile people. They can easily be recognized by their habit of whining and complaining about life, throwing ashes on their heads, and becoming poor.
If you notice such tendencies in yourself, the first thing you need to do is to realize responsibility for your life. No one will live it for you. And you too will experience the bitterness of broken hopes and aimlessly lived years. While you are trying to hide from life and sit in the rear, all the most beautiful things are passing by.
Remember: failure is not as bad as inaction. Every failure ultimately brings success closer, and inaction only brings emptiness and death closer.
Frustration
Frustration is the absence of desires, aspirations, and ambitions. Surely you have met people who look down on the dreams and goals prevailing in society. World fame? No thanks! Marry? It's better to be alone! Have a beautiful figure? Here’s another thing: let them love me for who I am!
These people consider themselves special, not like everyone else, almost chosen. In fact, they simply became victims of a common and very harmful psychological defense - devaluation. And now everything that for some reason is inaccessible to them is perceived as unnecessary, alien and unworthy. In order not to experience the stress of falling self-esteem, the brain blocks desires and plunges a person into frustration.
This has happened to me more than once. After I attended driving school and received my license, I was very scared to drive on my own. In order not to be tormented by the thought that I was a coward, and not to experience the stress of overcoming fear, I decided that I didn’t really need it. 10 years have passed, I still don’t drive a car and I reproach myself for my cowardice and short-sightedness.
To avoid falling into this trap, you need to realize that the lack of opportunities is primary, and your reluctance is secondary. That is, first you realize the impossibility of getting something, and only then the brain turns on devaluation. Learn to be honest with yourself - this is one of the most important skills. Mentally give up only what is available to you. This is especially true for generally accepted values: a high standard of living, relationships and family, beauty, power, universal recognition, etc.
General disorganization
If total chaos reigns in life, then there is no time for goal setting. I would like to sort out routine everyday tasks. It's hard to plan anything when your left leg doesn't know what your right arm is doing. So before you start setting goals, get your life in order. Time management can help you!
Let's go to battle!
After creating a step-by-step plan, you simply choose a priority goal and start moving towards it. It is advisable that you have strong motivation all the way to your goal. So find like-minded people. This could be a significant other, children, friends, partners.
If you don’t have like-minded people or they don’t charge you, then use the SmartProgress service . There they will definitely provide you with motivation and help you reach your cherished goal.
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Time management techniques for setting goals
You and I are business-minded and modern people, so we must have appropriate methods. I propose to get acquainted with the achievements of leading experts in the field of time management, goal setting and planning.
Franklin's Pyramid
This technique will help you build a clear hierarchical structure of goals, values and plans. You will clearly see the priority of tasks and their consistency with each other.
You need to start building your personal pyramid from the bottom level. It contains a person’s life values: what matters most to him, what motivates him most and makes him happy. This could be family, creativity, social activities, self-improvement, spiritual development, well-being, etc.
I chose family and self-development for myself. Not very original, but honest.
We formulate global goals based on our core values. This is the second level of the pyramid. What would you like to achieve in life, how to realize yourself, what point to reach. Some people want to become famous, get on the Forbes list, travel all over the world, but for others it’s enough to have their own roof over their heads and a favorite business.
My global goal sounds like this: to raise a strong and harmonious personality in my son and provide him with a decent future.
On the floor above you need to place a master plan for achieving a global goal. It represents several key life challenges.
In my case, these could be tasks such as saving money for my son’s education, helping him finish school well, or buying a home.
What follows is a long-term plan for the next 3-5 years. It is compiled in accordance with the tasks of the previous level. After it, a short-term plan is written for the next few months, and after that a plan for every day. In this way, even daily tasks will be subordinated to global values. This is exactly what proper goal setting actually looks like.
SMART
The most popular technique in the field of goal setting, which is used by all and sundry. And they do it right. The essence of the technique is that each goal must meet five criteria: specificity, measurability, achievability, adequacy, and time limitation. The first letters of these criteria in English form the acronym SMART.
We have a separate article dedicated to the SMART method. If you are interested in learning more about it, take the time to look there.
Mind maps
A mind map will help you avoid getting lost in multitasking situations. Its main advantage is clarity. You don't have to go through huge lists of tasks and figure out what belongs to what.
In appearance, mind maps resemble a family tree. The main goal is placed in the center, from it there are branches to tasks, and from them to subtasks. This is just a godsend for complex purposes. See what the finished mind map looks like for my goal.
You can build mind maps on a sheet of paper, or you can use special programs like MindMeister.
"Smart" rule
How to set goals correctly? When solving this problem, it is useful to apply the effective SMART rule:
The goal must be specific and focused on one result. If multiple results are to be achieved, multiple goals must be defined.
The goal must be measurable and presented in quantitative terms. For example, the management of a company's employees can be assessed by indicators such as the number of late arrivals and staff turnover. The effectiveness of working with clients can be measured by the number of complaints, “lost” clients, and the results of the “Mystery Shopping” program.
The goal must be acceptable and achievable. The bar can be a little higher, but not too high in the sky, otherwise falling will be painful and disappointing. When a goal is not achieved, a person’s natural reaction is disappointment, lack of faith in himself and his strength. To avoid a stressful situation, it is very important to follow this rule.
The goal must also be realistic, correlated with the strategy, goals and interests of the chain (pharmacy), and result-oriented. Successfully achieving a goal should be meaningful to the company and should move it forward.
It is necessary to clearly define the exact time frame for achieving the goal. On the one hand, the deadlines must be realistic, on the other hand, they must be compressed in order to make maximum use of both their reserves and personnel resources. As a rule, business plans set goals for one year; in personal life, you can set longer-term goals for 5 and 10 years.
Let's see how to apply this rule with a specific example. Let’s say, in order to fulfill your sales plan, you set a goal: “Increase the amount of the average check.” Sounds quite abstract, doesn't it? Is it possible to transform it into something feasible and achievable? What elements are missing to achieve the goal?
Does Franklin's system work?
The best answer to the question about the effectiveness of the famous American’s scheme will be his biography. Franklin’s system requires a person not just to follow “ahead”, but to deliberately and gradually approach what he wants. All points of the plan need to be adjusted over time, since sometimes adjustments are made to a person’s life from the outside. For example, deterioration in health often changes the course of life. Therefore, it is permissible to change the Franklin scheme (according to your desires and capabilities). Analyzing completed tasks planned for several years, for a month, and, finally, for a day, will allow you to identify what was done correctly and what you can retreat from.
A plan for achieving goals is a long and difficult job, during which you will have to negotiate with very serious opponents - your own desires, habits, laziness. Therefore, you should begin your honest pursuit of success thoroughly. By the way, at the basis of his spiritual ziggurat, Franklin put such concepts as hard work, justice, sincerity, and modesty. Perhaps this is what led him to victory. Who knows what would have happened if he had replaced these human values with wealth, power and recognition?
Preface
Now that timid moment has come when you decide to ask the monumental question “how to achieve your goal?”, thereby potentially increasing the number of successful people per combat unit.
Today we will find goals, if there are none, we will make a plan to achieve the goals and move in their direction. This post allows you to put into practice the information from the introductory article on goal setting; we recommend reading it first. No, not for likes and subscriptions, but so that you can follow the steps of this victorious guide with skill.
Content
- How to achieve your goal in 7 steps Step 1 - description of desires
- Step 2 - writing goals
- Step 3 - Setting a Deadline
- Step 4 - filtering out left targets
- Step 5 - create a plan to achieve the goal Choose a goal
- We break the goal into subgoals by year
- Dividing the year into months
- We break the month into weeks
- Recording actions to achieve the goal
- We detail the actions by day
- We draw up a plan for other goals
- Setting priorities
- What is the beauty of this approach?
A little background information before we begin. Having goals in life, contrary to everyone's stupid opinion, is fun and wonderful. We call it the “Game Principle” (we still need to work on the name), where you have fun because you discover new things, you start completing levels faster and better, you become better and, in the end, you get the opportunity to win.
Goals guide, ennoble and help , it is still not clear why so many people deliberately deprived themselves of this cool tool, but oh well. The skill you will gain here is truly invaluable. Let's go.
Why is it important to make a plan?
If you, like I once did, believe that you don’t need a plan to work effectively, try, for the sake of experiment, writing down what you want to achieve and what you will do to achieve it. What did you get? Often these are scattered affairs, scraps of thoughts. Sometimes it’s complete confusion and inability to write even a few things. But even if you write a huge to-do list, will you be able to choose in a few seconds which things need to be done first, which ones can be postponed, and which ones can be crossed out altogether?
A plan allows you to bring order to your thoughts and is one of the ways to combat procrastination. One of the reasons why we put things off is a lack of understanding of what can be done now, including the difficulty of choosing tasks. When the thoughts “I need to do this, this, this and this” are spinning in your head, you can’t decide what to do and end your day sitting on the couch with a feeling of panic and that everything is getting out of control, that there is too much to do and you can’t cope.
