Setting goals is an essential aspect of any successful plan. Knowing where you want to go and what you need to do to get there is essential in establishing a positive mindset and understanding that even with obstacles along the way, you will eventually get there if you keep moving forward every day.
Goals are used for many things, whether mapping out a clear path towards your future or giving yourself something to look forward to. We need goals in our life to give us a sense of purpose to move forward every day.
They can be as specific as planning to buy a car or as vague as promising that one day you’ll start learning how to play the guitar again.
Whether you have just started thinking about setting goals or are looking for new ideas on how you could become more structured, this article will help you get there.
This guide goes through the essential steps necessary when setting goals.
Why Setting Goals is Important
Without goals, it’s hard to see if you’re on the right track or if you should adjust your course. Furthermore, it is hard to stay motivated when you have no clear plan on what you should do.
Setting goals gives you a greater sense of purpose as well. Goal-setting helps you decide what you want in your life and how you can get there.
With that clarity comes a sense of accomplishment and motivation, which will help you achieve more than you would have otherwise been able to do by yourself. It will help you become more successful in life.
How can setting goals help you reach your dreams?
Setting goals helps you know what you should do to achieve your dreams.
Step 1
Make a list of all the things you would like to accomplish in your life. This could be for work, achieving a top position within your company, or for love, finding your ideal partner with whom you would like to spend the rest of your life.
I use goal setting for fitness. So I thought about how much I wanted to weigh, figured out what I needed to do to get there, and made a list of things to accomplish to hit my target weight.
Step 2
The second step is figuring out how to achieve those goals.
What do you need to do to achieve your goals? Unfortunately, many people don’t know how to do this. So let’s go through this step in detail.
Make a list of your goals, for example, becoming fit.
Create a sublist under the heading becoming fit, and detail the steps you need to take; this could be weight loss, gym, or walking.
Expand each point with more details, for example, weight loss, find a weight loss program that you could subscribe to be accountable for, and give weekly updates on your weight loss.
You could expand this further by choosing healthier foods to eat.
Step 3
The third step is calculating the time it will take to accomplish those goals.
This ensures you can stay motivated while working on your goals, rather than procrastinating about how much you have to do until they become too overwhelming and impossible to reach.
When we have too much to do at once, we procrastinate and don’t do anything.
Breaking the goals into smaller steps will allow us to set the correct timings for each step of our goals.
Step 4
The fourth step is planning how you’ll track progress towards each goal.
We need to be accountable for our actions. Tracking our progress in apps like ClickUp helps us stay more accountable and motivates us to do more.
Step 5
The fifth step is deciding what reward or benefits come with reaching certain milestones or finishing specific projects.
I like to reward myself. It helps keep me motivated. You will be motivated when you see your progress and won’t worry when your progress seems slow. You will always have the goal in mind and the type of celebration that will follow.
Step 6
Setting goals helps achieve success by ensuring everything necessary for reaching those goals is taken care of beforehand. Remove all distractions and clutter from your life; this includes your work area, and keep it free of distractions.
Put your mobile phone on silent mode when you work so that you can concentrate more and make better progress.
Doing all these actions beforehand will help you achieve your goal.
Step 7
The seventh way setting goals helps with achieving success is by giving yourself guidelines for success from people who have already accomplished them – this could be through books, articles, documentaries, or even friends who have become successful.
How to Break Down Your Goals?
When setting goals, you must start with a clear picture of what success will look like. Then, breaking down your goals into smaller, more manageable pieces that can be achieved over time is essential.
We spoke about creating lists and sublists from those lists. Then, you could use Excel or Clickup App on your phone to organize and keep track of your goals.
Create a list of your goals. We will use the fitness example from above.
Goal
- I want to get fit.
Figure out how to achieve your goals
- I need to join the gym and eat correctly.
- I will sign up for the gym and attend classes three times a week.
- I will sign up for a weight loss class and go to the class weekly for a weigh-in and follow their eating plan.
Calculate the time to reach your goals.
If I go to the gym three times a week and commit to eating healthy, then in 3 months, I will lose 5lb. If I achieve this in three months after this, I should be able to lose another 5lb.
Tracking the progress of your goals
I will track the progress of my weight and eating plan on MyFitnessPal. In addition, I will log my food intake daily to build a complete picture of my reaching my goal.
Choose your reward.
My reward will be a holiday in the summer to a lovely location where I can show off my beach-ready body.
Use the process above to reach any goal quickly if you stick to the plan.
Let’s go a little deeper into setting goals. Have you heard about the Smart Goal Framework?
Use the SMART goals framework.
The goal-setting process should always start with creating a SMART goal. This framework is an acronym for the following four parts: S=Specific, M=Measurable, A=Achievable R=Realistic.
According to this framework, your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic.
These are the most important aspects when it comes to setting your goal.
Using the example above, we can see how we used this framework.
Specific: We wanted to lose weight.
Measurable: We could see the results of our weight loss every week.
Achievable: Sticking to the weight loss program and the gym routine would allow you to achieve your goal in a 6-month process.
Realistic: Other people have done this before, so there is no reason you could not achieve this either.
Commit to your plan
The first step in setting an achievable goal is to commit to taking it on. For example, if you want to start a new fitness plan, you’ll need to make yourself accountable by writing it down or telling someone else about the plan.
Everyone has their unique way of committing to their goals and plans–ensuring you know what works for you will help boost your chances of success.
Identify your obstacles and blocks.
One of the essential steps in setting goals is to identify what obstacles or blocks you will face. We all have some barriers that stand in the way of our goals. Identifying these blocks can be difficult, but creating a plan is necessary to get you to your destination.
How do you expect to overcome obstacles if you don’t know them? There are many ways to approach this step; here are some examples:
1. Write a list of everything that could stop you from achieving your goal
2. Meet with someone who has accomplished something similar and ask for their advice on what they did
3. Identify what your current habits or behaviors that might be standing between you and your goal
4. Start keeping track of everything you’re doing that may be hindering your progress towards your goal
Track your progress
The first step in setting your goals is to track your progress. It will make it easy to track how far you have come and what you need to do next. You don’t want to get frustrated if you aren’t making the progress you had initially set out to, so tracking your progress is essential.
Take daily steps to achieve your goals.
Before setting goals, you must take steps towards reaching them. So start by taking a small step a day.
It could be as simple as waking up a little earlier or scheduling time for yourself in your schedule to go to the gym. Start with small steps and build from there. Reaching those big goals becomes more manageable if you commit to them daily.
Celebrate your wins
Celebrating your wins is a great way to stay motivated. However, it’s always important to remember that achieving goals takes time and effort, so give yourself credit for your progress as you go along.
A great way to celebrate your wins is by rewarding yourself with something small every time you meet a goal.
Whether buying yourself a coffee or giving yourself an afternoon out at the movies, these little rewards will help get you through some more challenging times when the going gets tough.
Learn from the mistakes you made
In the past, do you feel like you’ve been doing something but not getting anywhere? For example, perhaps you’ve been trying to quit smoking for a long time, but it never seems to happen.
If that sounds like you, now is the time to start making better decisions about your future and setting goals for yourself.
To do this, start by understanding where your weaknesses are and what goals would be best suited for achieving them. Then set those as specific as possible, making them easier to achieve.
Conclusion
You can see why it is important to establish goals. They can affect all aspects of life, including health, relationships, and ambition. Create goals for anything you are striving for, and create goal lists for what you would like to achieve. You can achieve anything if you set the correct goals and follow them.