How To Set Goals The Right Way
Welcome to today’s post on How To Set Goals The Right Way. The post will cover the following:
1. Introduction — The Road to Your Well Deserved Destinations
2. Definition
3. The 4 Benefits of Goal Setting
4. How Goal Setting Controls Your Behaviour
5. What Really is Personal Goal setting?
6. Conclusion
7. References
1. Introduction — The Road to Your Well Deserved Destinations
Life is like a journey where everyone is issued with a one-time FREE ticket to travel to a destination of their choice whenever they want.
Just like all ordinary tickets, apart from being issued once only, it’s neither transferable nor exchangeable and expires at the end of one’s life.
Now, there’s something interesting about this ticket! Some people use theirs to travel as far as they want while others keep theirs safely hoping that someday that they will decide to use it to travel somewhere … At least when they feel ready enough to travel.
Others decide to use their ticket but change their minds along the way and alight midstream — abandoning the journey before completion. Perhaps into some familiar or unfamiliar place.
For those who use their tickets, they get the privilege to enjoy site seeing, widen their horizons, visit new places, meet new people and many other adventures that come with travel.
Those who don’t or even give up on the way, never live to reach their well-deserved destinations.
Every human being has that deep desire to succeed in life… To reach the destination they long for and enjoy the stay.
Amazingly, no one wants to live a life of failure.
No one wants to live an uncomfortable life.
No one wants to be poor.
No one wants to be a wreck in life.
This is a natural desire.
On the other hand, success, just like failure is not automatic.
It’s planned for and so it’s attainable.
The question is: How then do you plan for it? Or better still is it really possible to plan for failure? The answer is YES. If both are a journey, then one needs a ticket to get there.
There’s nothing more frustrating than living a life that is aimless…
A life that has no direction. A life of hopelessness and helplessness.
Such a life comes with living without goals. Life without goals is like hoping into a train without determining your destination or walking with eyes closed or driving with the windscreen covered.
What is the end result of such a move?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Such kind of actions are an accident waiting to happen and when it happens it’s likely to be destructive if not fatal.
This is like the people who use their free tickets but are undecided about their destination and in the middle of the journey decide to disembark from the train.
The free ticket is like goals in our lives.
If we don’t set goals and follow through to their completion, we will not reach the destination and we’ll find life so boring and meaningless.
Studies indicate that very many people set New Year’s resolutions. While this is a good thing, what is shocking is that this decision does last for long. A big number of these people (actually 80%) begin to abandon this decision as early as the second month of the year.
So why is this so? Several reasons have been given for this high rate of failure. Some of the reasons include setting goals that are not attainable, are unreasonable, not monitored and so become unachievable.
This ties in with the advice that when setting goals they should be reasonable and achievable.
2. Definition of a Goal
A goal is an aim of an action or the reason for an action targeted to be accomplished within certain standards and defined time limit.
It is also a standard for judging fulfilment. Accordingly, to say that one is aiming to achieve goal B implies that such a person will only be fulfilled after achieving that particular goal.
A goal is therefore an aspiration or desire of what we want to become
There are long term and short term goals.
Long term goals are those that take a period of 3 years and above to achieve.
Short term goals on the other hand are those that take 1 year and below to achieve.
Goal Setting at the Palm of Your Hands
3. The 4 Benefits of Goal Setting
The goal setting theory has been in existence for over 5 decades. It was invented by Edwin A. Locke (https://www.researchgate.net).
He began to examine goal setting in the mid-1960s and continued researching on it for more than 30 years.
So it’s that body of knowledge that has a long history and has been tested severally.
The theory is based on the simplest of thoughtful observations which indicate that conscious human behaviour is purposeful. It is regulated by the individual’s goals.
Other research shows that there is a relationship between goal setting and success.
According to this theory, goal setting has various benefits. These include:
(a) Self-motivation
(b) Self-drive
(c) Self-esteem
(d) Self-confidence
4. How Goal Setting Controls Your Behaviour
Goals give us a reason to engage in an action.
They direct us to our actions and they help us focus on the relevant activities as we eliminate the irrelevant ones (those that do not contribute towards achieving our goal).
The human mind is designed to act after a trigger e.g. when the nutrients and water levels in the body are running low, the brain is triggered to relay to the body the feeling of hunger and thirst.
This then means that if we are to have our bodies take action, we must engage our minds to send the triggers.
Goal setting is one such activity that triggers the mind — that it should signal to the body to react or take action.
Subsequently, when it comes to managing one’s life, if there is no goal for it, the mind will not respond to anything. This lack of response will eventually lead to failure which in this case means inability to achieve what one is capable of and designed to achieve.
5. What Really is Personal Goal Setting?
It is identifying the actions we intend to take or what we plan to do and developing a plan of action for it.
This plan guides our actions in terms of when they should be undertaken, how their achievement will be monitored and measured.
It also guides on how they should flow in a logical manner and order of priority.
Simply put therefore, the action we plan to take should be geared towards an end result that we desire.
According to Frank Smoll, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of Washington the ABCs of goals are:
i. Achievable
ii. Believable
iii. Committed
Even though his emphasis on goal-setting is on sports, it has been found that goal setting and achievement techniques apply the same way in any self-regulated activity or other non-work areas such as health management.
Before you begin setting your goals, ask yourself these questions concerning your life:
a) What do I want to do?
b) What do I want to be?
c) What do I want to see?
d) What do I want to have?
e) Where do I want to go?
6. Conclusion
Without goals no achievement is expected. Effective goal setting serves to motivate us to take action.
If we desire meaningful and fulfilling actions in our lives, planning for them by setting goals is inevitable. Following through to ensure they are achieved is the game changer.
For this to happen, the goals should fulfil certain qualities.
They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound, Evaluative and Reviewed. (SMARTER).
In the next post I’ll show you how to write SMART goals and how to Evaluate and Review with examples.
7. References
https://positivepsychology.com
