For most people, setting goals is just a natural part of life. We’ve been told throughout our lives that we should set goals, and we assume that we will be able to achieve them. However, most of us have never been taught how to set goals so that they are realistic and achievable. If you want to start setting realistic goals that you will be able to achieve, it is essential to follow these fundamental keys.
1. Write Your Goals Down
You are far more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. Writing your goals down makes them physically real, and makes it more difficult to change your mind. Having them written down where you can see them will give you something to visualize and reflect on.
2. Set Short-Term Milestones
When your goals seem too far away, you tend to procrastinate completing the steps to reach your goals and quickly lose motivation. Long-term goals are great to have, but to continue moving toward achieving them you have to create smaller, short-term milestones as well. The best way to do this is by actually creating a system of habits towards your goal. As created by Scott Adams, it’s much better to create a habit of eating healthier daily than just saying you want to lose 20 lbs. Or it’s way easier to see progress towards making $100,000 in your own business by creating a daily habit of marketing and sales in your business than just by having the monetary goal.
3. Measure Actions as Well as Progress
It’s great to have aggressive goals, but it is crucial for you to be able to measure the actions you take rather than the progress you’ve made. When you only measure the progress you’re making, it can become frustrating if you don’t get as far as you’d hoped. Measuring your actions instead can keep you motivated and help you to reach your goals faster. This looks like:
- Drinking a green smoothie with fruit, kale, and nut butter for breakfast every morning – you can check that off
- Sending out a marketing piece of content to your audience every week
- Talking to your partner or spouse about their day after work daily
- Showing up to your team meetings at work alert, ready to participate, and with actual input and ideas to help your team reach their respective goals – than just saying you want a raise
Making your actions measurable is way more fulfilling than just setting an arbitrary goal with no actions behind it.
4. Start with Just One Goal
Don’t be too overzealous when it comes to setting goals. If you try to change too many things at one time, you’ll likely fail to achieve any of your goals. Trying to improve too many aspects of your life at once requires an overwhelming amount of willpower and can end up being unrealistic and difficult to achieve. You can do up to 3 major ones at a time, however having some sort of accountability and habit change is what will be necessary for you to actually sustain this change.
5. Schedule Time for Your Goals
You will never accomplish your goals if you don’t make time for working toward reaching them. Schedule a specific time every day to work toward your goals. The more time you allocate every day to working toward your goals, the faster you’ll reach them.
6. Set Goals You Actually Want to Achieve
Never set a goal because you think you should or because they sound good. Doing this is the quickest way of failing to reach them. Take some time to look at your life and the direction you want to head and set goals that you can realistically achieve, and more importantly that you want to achieve.
Never again will you fail to reach the goals that you’ve set out to achieve. These key essentials of goal setting will help you set realistic goals that you want to achieve and put you on the path to achieving them.
It’s your turn! Share 1 key that resonated most with you and why in the comments below 👇🏾 🙂