The act of setting success goals can help to build up your confidence, motivate you, and encourage personal development. However, negative thinking is inevitable if one fails to meet his or her goals. Although any person can set a goal, the possibility of successfully meeting one depends on the parameters used in setting a goal.
Setting realistic goals is important to trigger new behaviors and sustain momentum in your personal and professional development. By exploring concrete steps for how to set goals and understanding goal-setting theory, you’ll uncover how to achieve your goals for improved self-confidence.
What is goal setting?
Goal setting is the act of identifying what you want to accomplish, then creating specific and measurable goals that help one focus on them, track, and eventually succeed in the task. It helps create long-term goals and short-term goals as well.
Goals are the desired results you or your team is committed to achieving within a certain time frame. Well-defined goals will help to elicit new behaviors and concentrate on what’s important to you.
8 steps to set goals and actually achieve them
Chances are you have at some point failed to meet a goal you had set for yourself. Perhaps other priorities came up, or the task took longer than you expected.
There are many reasons that people struggle in achieving their goals, but being intentional on how you set your goals is what will more likely make you achieve them. Here are effective goal-setting tips on how to achieve goals when they feel so overwhelming.
1. Imaginate success
Knowing what success looks like is the first step to achieving your goals. Visualization is a practice that helps you imagine the results you want to achieve as if you’ve already accomplished them. It involves using all your senses to train your brain to get familiar with the experience of reaching your goal.
One way you can do this is by creating a personal vision statement, which is a statement that describes your personal values and goals.
Visualizing success in this way can help motivate you to clarify exactly what it is that you’re after and continue progressing toward it. It can also help you build confidence that your goal is within reach.
2. Set SMART goals
According to Frontiers in Psychology research, over 1,000 studies have found that high and specific goals increase the performance, persistence, and motivation of a task compared to those that are easy or vague. This is what SMART goals mean.
The acronym for SMART goals includes the following:
Specific: your goals must be well-defined with no ambiguity at all so you can know what exactly you are targeting.
Measurable: You should have concrete measures in place so it is clear when you have attained or are approaching your goal.
Attainable: Goals should be realistic, given the resources available to you.
Relevant: Your personal goals should fit into your definition of success. In the workplace, this would mean that your goals align with company-wide objectives.
Time-bound: Every goal has realistic deadlines in which to plan your time ahead to deliver what you intend.
By putting a goal which exemplifies such properties, you get yourself better suited for greater chance of achieving what you intended to do. And here’s the SMART example by way of elaboration to be able to express an idea at real-life situation setting:
S: All satisfaction rating surveys taken by the entire customers right on the starting part of your agreement and another on two quarter term.
M: You hope to improve customer satisfaction by 15% in two quarters from now.
A: Customer satisfaction scores have always been on the increase in every quarter for the past year, so this goal can be achieved.
R: You want the company to always come first in people’s minds as an organization that puts much emphasis on customer satisfaction.
T: Your desired timeline will run until the end of the next two quarters.
In this example, you’ll be able to tell whether the goal was met by determining if customer satisfaction increased by at least 15% after the next two quarters. Those details are what help to make goals specific and measurable.
3. Write down your goals
Writing down your goals makes them real and more concrete in life. A study on psychological findings by Gail Matthews showed that people who write their goals are likely to do more than those who do not write theirs.
The study also showed that sharing your goals with others to help keep you accountable can increase your odds of success. With someone else watching your progress, you may feel more motivated to keep your commitment so they don’t see you fail.
4. Outline your action plan
Because goals are often long-term and abstract by nature, it can be helpful to break them down into simpler steps that demonstrate ongoing progress. Continued effort toward little goals can feel easier because you consistently reach milestones and can celebrate small wins.
To make an action plan, try creating a “goal ladder.” This life-planning process involves writing your main goal at the top rung of the “ladder” and making each of your smaller goals “rungs” that lead to your main goal.
It can also be helpful to create a checklist of all tasks and to vigorously check off each step you complete for that extra feeling of accomplishment. Including due dates for each individual step can also help you stay on track.
5. Create a timeline
A timeline for reaching your goals lets you focus on and plan activities while keeping yourself abreast of progress toward actual results. Crucially, make sure your goal timelines are kept realistic when reaching for success.
For example, you decide to write a book by the end of the year in January; given that up to date you have only managed to write half a chapter every two months in the past.
Be sure to also take into account upcoming work projects that may require late hours, travel plans, or competing goals when setting a timeline. This will help you develop better deadlines that accurately reflect your current lifestyle and priorities.
6. Identify potential obstacles
Set realistic goals by accounting for the challenges you may face. These challenges may be related to a lack of resources, unexpected life events, or activities of other people. Whatever the challenge is, you will find some roadblocks on the way.
Create a list of probable obstacles that may arise in your journey and consider how you would be able to counteract them if they do arise. Knowing the potential obstacles you will face makes them less intimidating if they happen to be part of your journey to success.
7. Find an accountability partner
It is lonely and very overwhelming to try to do something all by yourself. Accountability keeps you making consistent, steady progress and striving for your goals.
Consider getting a buddy, a relative, or life coach to act as your accountability partner. Inform them of your goals in as much detail as possible, report weekly on your success, and ask them to encourage you at different junctures on your journey. For instance, you can request quotes on goal-setting from them for inspiration and keeping you on your toes.
8. Reflect and adjust
Just like anything in life, sometimes your timeline or goal must change with the circumstance of life. And that’s perfectly okay. Rather than beating yourself up, take time to look over your goals and see what you can change. Take time to figure out what’s working and what’s not and adjust your plan.