Setting goals is an essential process for success in any area of life. Goals help us to focus our efforts, stay motivated, and track our progress. Goal setting is defined here as the process of thinking about and deciding on specific aims or objectives that one would like to achieve. Goal setting often also includes planning, which is breaking down goals into smaller pieces that can then be easily scheduled or executed.
Why Goal Setting Is Important
Many years of research have shown that setting goals can help improve our performance and productivity. Moreover, when we use science-based goal setting strategies, we make it more likely that we achieve the goals we set for ourselves and that these goals actually affect our lives in the ways we want them to.
How To Set Goals
Goal setting is an expression of ourselves, people often describe goal setting as a detached, mental, unemotional process. But when we leave some sense of emotional connection out of our goal-setting process, we actually do ourselves a disservice. Setting goals that does not represent ourselves, our values and interests, we set ourselves up for less satisfying experiences, and therefore, we reduce the likelihood that we actually stick to our goals (Sheldon Elliot, 1999).
Ultimately, happiness and well-being are the ultimate goals—we set the goals that we set because we think they will make us feel good in some sense.
Goal-Setting Tips
Here are a few tips that can help aid the goal-setting process.
Prioritize your goals: If you have several goals, be sure to decide which ones have the highest priority. For example, if you have one goal to get straight As and one goal to get six-pack abs, at some point you will have to prioritize one over the other. There are only so many hours in the day and its okay to focus on some goals more than others.
Break long-term goals into small goal pieces: Large goals can feel overwhelming and can lead to fear or inertia. So try to break your goals down into small pieces. Don’t focus so much on getting the six-pack abs, for example, and instead focus on diligently exercising 5 days per week or whatever the small goals are that make up your larger goal.
Write your goals down: When you write your goals down, it can be easier to identify whether you’ve thought them through fully. Maybe a goal is not as clear as you thought, or perhaps it requires something else to happen first that you need to plan for. For example, if your goal is to get a particular job but this job requires a particular degree. Writing your goals down can help you identify gaps in your thinking.
Commit to your goals: Committing to our goals in writing provides extra accountability that can prevent us from giving up on our goals prematurely. So write up a little statement that says something like, I commit to doing X, sign your name, and hang it on your fridge or wall.
Focus on your performance rather than the outcome: There are many external factors that can prevent us from reaching our goals. To avoid blaming ourselves for these outside circumstances, it can help to focus on what we can control, and that is often our small goal pieces. If we continue to exercise 5 days per week but don’t have six-pack abs in the time we hoped for, there is nothing we can do about that. Our genes decide what our body can do. Try to give yourself credit for your performance even if the outcome isn’t quite what you expected.
Try habit stacking: Another tip offered by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, is to use habit stacking. When we already have a habit that we are good at sticking to, we can more easily attach other habits to it, either right before it or right after it. For example, lets say you’ve got a habit of brushing your teeth. You might start flossing after every time you brush your teeth to get in a new good habit. I’m using habit stacking right now to get myself to exercise more.
Make your environment work for you. There is a ton of research on how our environment can help or hurt our ability to stick to our goals (check out the book, Nudge, for more). Basically, we can set up our surroundings to help us reach our goals. For example, if you want to go running each morning, you might leave your running shoes by your bedside. Then you’ll see them right when you wake up and encourage yourself to go running. I do something similar by leaving my vitamins by my teacup. Then when I make my morning tea, I remember to take my vitamin.
Hopefully, some of these goal setting tips can help you set and reach your goals.