Intentional Goal Setting

Are your goals or target objectives easily attainable? Do you have goals that simply don’t challenge you? If you answered yes to these questions I am sorry to tell you that you are not growing because you are too comfortable and not uncomfortable enough. 

When it comes to making goals that help you in the long run, it’s important to ensure that they are progressive. By this, we mean that they should be lofty, illogical, not so easy to reach. Your goals should stretch you beyond your comfort zone.

Your targets, goals, and objectives should be like a muscle, you must work them regularly in order to see results. Which means like a muscle you will become sore, uncomfortable, discouraged, yet you must push through in order to see results and ultimately hit your target. 

Let’s look at this (5) step process to see if you are on track with pursuing you goals relentlessly:

Step 1. Think About What Matters Most

Before you jump into any huge goal setting strategies, you must discover and commit to your WHY. It is important to think about what matters most to you, and no one else. It is you WHY that will force you to continue even during those times you are not motivated to do so. 

Many people start off by looking at their goals from a monetary perspective, only to find that in some cases they are still unfulfilled or unhappy even with more money. Therefore money should not be part of your “why”. Your goals should be connected to your passion, your purpose, your strong burning desire. 

Step 2. Think Long-Term, Plan Short-Term

It’s cool to think long term, Thinking long term will allow you to see the big picture. However, you must leave room for flexibility. Life happens, you may get derailed or have to pivot. With that being said, be mindful that the plan may change, but never the goal. 

For this reason, it can be very effective to plan short-term goals that are centered around your long-term thinking. Each short-term goal, achieved one by one, brings you closer to what you want in the long term.

Step 3. Use Key Results

Each task, objective, or goal should produce a result. The goal should be S.M.A.R.T.  an acronym for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. Having measurable results within a specific time lets you know if you are on the right track. 

If you are not seeing results within a specified amount of time then perhaps you need to revamp your course of action, or change your strategy. No goal setting is complete without key results. Key results are steppingstones to your goals.

For example; if you have a goal of saving six thousand dollars within six months – what are the actual key results? What are the moves you take? What do you do in order for this to happen?

For example, Let’s say you look at your results at around month (3) and realize that you only have $2500 dollars saved when you should have $3000 saved. Here is where you would need to “do something” perhaps increase savings in order to still hit your target, or perhaps extend the target date. 

Having a goal is great, but each goal you have should contain key results. So therefore you will know if you are on track or not. 

Step 4. Go for the GUSTO

Someone once said if your goals don’t scare you then you are aiming too low. Many people are so focused on the small details, which keeps them aiming too low and still missing the mark. 

Setting goals that are major only makes you stronger because you will discover that you will stretch yourself, push yourself, encourage yourself to press beyond your area of comfortability. In addition, having grand, lofty goals will increase your mental fortitude. 

With that being said, you mustn’t  take failure seriously. Any and all successful people have failed multiple times on their journey. Failure is not a personal reflection of  you or your  abilities, it’s just a part of the process.

Each time you write down a goal, think to yourself, “Is this the best I can do?”

Step 5. Think Ahead

Aggressive and progressive goals will always require you to think ahead and outside the box. Understandably, sometimes you cannot think about all the outcomes of a particular situation, but you can still plan for some events that can change or unfortunate possibilities that don’t benefit you. 

Thinking ahead will allow you to account for specific situations and make room for contingency plans. Also you will be able to recognize goals or actions that are not beneficial, and in this way, will help you to make more actionable goals. When planning or thinking ahead, the process does not have to come to a complete STOP but simply and slow down or a pivot.

Trust the process, work the process, and allow the process to work for you.