HOW TO SET GOALS? Why set goals? How to Do It? Decide

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1 HOW TO SET GOALS? Why set goals? Goals are targets, without which we live aimless life. When you think of goals, you are telling yourself and others that you are in control of life. Goals bring focus, meaning and purpose in life. The entire process right from setting goals, long and short term, detailing, execution, monitoring, makes you happier. You may modify, or change your goals drastically, you may face small and big obstacles, you may succeed or fail, however that is all experience from which we evolve into a better person. It gives you motivation and self-confidence. First try to be aware of your own unique personality and aspirations. Then start asking the following questions. What are your long term life objectives, not just in career but all aspects of life (family, friends, social, personal-spiritual)? To begin with your answers will be very hazy, like good job, good house, good bank balance, good family etc. Keep a diary for this purpose and keep on noting your responses as frequently as you can. When you start probing further as to what a good job means to you, clarity will very slowly emerge. Likewise for other aspects. Be very patient with yourself. Sometimes you may find that you contradict yourself from your previous answers. This is perfectly all right and natural. Don t criticize yourself. Over a longer period, you may find major changes in your aspirations. That is also OK and part of evolution. As your maturity and knowledge base develops, goals also change. However, just because these are variable, does not mean that you should not plan. On the contrary, it is essential to bring in focus, and plan your life better, and work efficiently. Ideally, goals should be in harmony with your mind, body and spirit. However, this will take lot of time. Evolution would be natural if you are sincere with yourself. Hence, start off with whatever you feel at the moment. Keep on checking the above aspect periodically. Your experience will bring in the course correction. How to Do It? 1. Decide: First start thinking for the long term (life) goals in all areas of life. However, take it one by one. For a beginner this question itself can be daunting and confusing. Don t worry even if you can t decide anything to begin with. Keep on asking these questions daily. Do the same thing for medium (1-3 years), short term (1-3 months), weekly and daily intervals. It is easiest to know it for the day, slightly difficult for the week, more difficult for the short term, even more difficult for medium term and most difficult for the long term. This is true for every type of forecasting. You have more clarity and certainty in the short term. The uncertainty grows nonlinearly with time because of multiple complex factors. Be specific about goals: What grade you want, what salary package you want? Define in detail the type of job you want. How many total hours of study per day/week, how many hours per subject, how many hours per subject topic, how much for theory and problem solving, how much for assignments and lab reports? 1

2 While doing this keep your capability and circumstances in mind. You can definitely dream big, however, you must then have strong desire and plan to reach it by improving your capability. 2. Motivation: Ask yourself why the goal is so important. Is it worth the time and effort? How will you feel when you achieve it? Think about the priorities of different goals. Several goals may be important, but some are far more than the others. Can you convince your well-wisher about them? 3. Write Down your goals: Make a special notebook for the same, or you may use a PC/laptop for the same. However, make sure to have multiple copies for convenience and avoiding failure of a gadget. Writing down goals enhances chances of your sticking to them. Write goals in specific terms. Rather than just saying I want to study more. You may say, I want to study 1 hour more every day. Also, write down what you want, not what you don t want. For example, instead of saying I don t want to fail in maths, say that you want to get a C grade in maths. Thus, make the goals achievable. 4. Break down the goals: Large goals or long term goals need to be broken down into smaller chunks. This helps in bringing more clarity and ease in implementation. So instead of saying that you want to be healthy, say that you want to do ½ an hour jogging in the park in the evening every day. These are also easier to achieve, and feel good about it. It helps in developing momentum. 5. Keep operational goals small : Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. 6. Put timelines for every step in the goal. It helps in implementation and monitoring. Helps in avoiding distractions from the goals by putting pressure. 7. Prioritize your goals so that you know their relative importance. 8. Set performance goals, not outcome goals You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control! 9. Share your goals regularly with positive persons. It increases chances of your sticking to them. 10. Take the first step: Sometimes we have what is known as action paralysis. Too much of planning without any execution is fruitless. Perfect planning is never possible. So, start doing something, gain experience and then modify goals if required. Even in a thousand mile journey, you can take only one step at a time. Even if you don t know where and how to start, try to know from all sources you can and then just try something. 11. Keep Going: Progress towards goals can sometimes be difficult and frustrating. Hence perseverance is important. If a planned step is not working, think of some different strategy to get you forward, even a tiny bit. If you are struggling, ask people with experience about ideas and where you could be going wrong. If you are really stuck up- take a break, relax and then come back with a fresh mind. If you have to adjust the goal it is OK. 2

3 12. Celebrate: When you reach even a small sub-goal, pat yourself on the back, and thank others who contributed. Depending on the nature of the goal, celebrate appropriately. Enjoy that feeling before you get back to the next goal. The Detailed Process of Setting Goals: Step 1: Setting Long term Goals Consider what you want to achieve by some age (say 40) in future. It gives you an overall perspective that shapes all your decision making in some of the following broad categories. These are only indicative, you may choose to add and drop to/from the list based on personal preferences. It is important to have balance in all areas of life. Career What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve? Financial How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals? Education Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals? Family Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family? Artistic Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? Spiritual-Do you think it is essential to work on inner growth to be able to successful outside. This means becoming aware of your attitude (towards others, yourself, and circumstances), and thought processes which drive actions, and then improving upon these systematically. Physical Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this? Pleasure How do you want to enjoy yourself? (You should ensure that some of your life is for you!) Public Service Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how? Spend some time brainstorming on these things. Then, select one goal and reflect on what you want to do, and why it is so important. Trim the list so that you have a smaller number of really significant goals to focus on. It is important to make sure that these are your own goals, and not thrust on you by even the nearest ones. You may take their opinion and consider family needs in your decision making, but the goals must be all yours. Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals Once you have set the long term goals, set a five year plan for smaller goals that you need to complete to be on course to achieve the long term goals. Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your long term goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan. 3

4 Then create a daily To-Do-List of things that you should do today to work towards your long term goals. At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting. Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life. Staying on Course: Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis. Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.) After Achieving Goals: When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the selfconfidence you deserve. With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans: If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder. If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier. If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so. If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this. Tip: It's important to remember that failing to meet goals does not matter much, just as long as you learn from the experience. Feed lessons you have learned back into the process of setting your next goals. Remember too that your goals will change as time goes on. Adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge and experience, and if goals do not hold any attraction any longer, consider letting them go. Personal Goals Example 4

5 For her New Year's Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life. Her lifetime goals are as follows: Career "To be managing editor of the magazine that I work for." Artistic "To keep working on my illustration skills. Ultimately I want to have my own show in our downtown gallery." Physical "To run a marathon." Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals. Let's take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal becoming managing editor of her magazine: Five-year goal: "Become deputy editor." One-year goal: "Volunteer for projects that the current Managing Editor is heading up." Six-month goal: "Go back to school and finish my journalism degree." One-month goal: "Talk to the current managing editor to determine what skills are needed to do the job." One-week goal: "Book the meeting with the Managing Editor." As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished. Goal Setting vs. Goal Planning Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. Leon Joseph Cardinal Suenens Why do so many people fail to reach their goals, even if they do goal setting? Because goal setting is less than half the battle. Goal setting is great. But, to actually achieve your goals, it takes goal planning. The good news is that goal planning can be more than half the battle. It sets you up for success mentally, emotionally, and, especially time-wise. Most people don t step into what achieving their goal would actually take, so they get frustrated or disheartened when they bump into the first obstacles. Worse, they usually don t align their schedule and their habits or environment to help them. They want their goals, they think about their goals, but they don t put enough structure in place to support them when they need it most, especially if it s a big habit change. Don t let this be you. 5

6 If you master the art of goal planning, then you will exponentially increase your chances of achieving your goals. Goal planning helps you build a roadmap of activities, make proper time on your schedule, and deal with obstacles more effectively. Goal Planning in a Nutshell If you ve never done goal planning, here s how to start. Simply take a goal and break it down into the work or effort required. 5 Questions to Help with Effective Goal Planning Here is a list of questions to help you with goal planning: 1. What is the specific work or effort required to achieve your goal? 2. What resources or dependencies do you need to help you succeed? 3. What is your action plan to achieve this goal? 4. What time investment is actually required? What should your weekly schedule look like to support achieving this goal? (Can you be a world-class violinist if you practice 5 minutes a day?) 5. What obstacles will you face and how will you respond? As you can imagine, this process is incredibly revealing as to what it really takes to achieve your goal. You might figure out that now is not the time for that particular goal because your ability to execute is low. It s better to figure this out now than waste your time and effort. Think of Action Plans as a Simple Story of What You ll Do Each Week/Day/Hour. 6