How to set goals that you’ll actually complete

Blue Mountains with text overlay Set Goals You'll Actually Accomplish, in Just Six Steps by Rikki Goldenberg, Executive Leadership Coach, Career Coach, Goal Setting

This content was originally shared in a mindset session for leaders up leveling their relationship with work. Want me to come speak to your crew? Reach out.

Goal setting is a trap that we all fall into

Let’s start with what the heck we’re talking about first. What is the point of goal setting? (First you want to check if you’re trying to create a goal, or a habit). If it’s a habit - learn more about habit formation here.

Goal setting is an optimistic experience.

We’re so focused on how it’s going to feel when we accept our future Oscar, Pulitzer, CEO nomination… whatever your beautiful daydreaming mind has in store for you.

We give our future selves a tall order to fill, and then are disappointed when we don’t meet it.

We start to question if we have the motivation, discipline, grit and resilience or drive to make it happen.

Spoiler alert, you do, you just did a shit job at setting your goals.

This applies to performance reviews, too. (Snag the template to have a better performance review season!)

We can meet our goals, when we set ourselves up for success - not a different version of ourselves.

The problem we often run into is we have a huge, exciting goal, and then… crickets.

Nothing happens.

We ask what went wrong.

We wonder if we “just don’t have it.”

We scroll on social media and see others who have seemingly found success and can’t figure out why not us.

It can be us. It’s just going to take work to set yourself up for success.

If you have a big, meaty, audacious goal that’s on the docket for you, read on.

How to set goals successfully in 6 steps - so that you actually meet them.

Step 1: Get clear on what the goal is

This sounds silly, right? You’re laughing. Duh, of course I know what the goal is. Wrong. We rarely sit down and truly consider what is the goal. What will success look like? What does it mean to have completed the goal? By having the indication of success clearly outlined, you won’t find that you move the goal posts. Has that happened to you? You technically met a goal, but before you can even celebrate your wins, you’re caught up in the next goal… this helps stop that.

Step 2: Figure out what it will truly take to get it done

This is where the time optimists falter. We’re going to write an entire novel in the next month! Amazing. How much time can you spend writing a day? 10 minutes? Okay, how many words can you write in 10 minutes? How many words make up the average novel? When you start to put actual language around the effort required, you’ll start to understand if your goal is realistic, or requires additional support. I like to believe I can build an Ikea bookshelf in 20 minutes. Experience shows me I need to set more time aside.

Step 3: Plan it out

Now that you know you need to spend 20 minutes (not 10) to write your novel over the next three months (not 1), put it in the calendar. Or make a visual representation of your progress. In this step I always like to think about are you going for task or time? Decide if you’re going for completing a specific task - i.e. I’ll sit as long as it takes to write 1,000 words, or, if you’re going for time - i.e. I’ll write for 10 minutes, even if only two words squeeze out of my brain. That will still be considered success, because we’re building the habit of writing.

Step 4: Bring in reinforcements

We’re going to falter, and have to readjust our plan to complete our goals. You may opt to bring in a specialist. Maybe you’ll hire an editor for your book, or a book coach like Savannah Gilbo! Maybe you realized that during your three month heads down writing period, you simply don’t have enough time to cook every single day, so you switch off with a friend or partner to take turns cooking meals. Whatever it is, recognize that you’ll need support to get it done.

Step 5: Find the wins

We need to find wins as we’re working towards our goal. You wrote every single day this week? Hazzah! You wrote your first 5,000 words?! Amazing! You’ve been consistently reading more in order to increase your creativity? Yes! You joined that writers workshop even though it made you nervous? Go you!

Step 6: Celebrate

When you’ve met that meaty goal in step 1 you defined, or, you’ve found a little win in your continued progress towards the goal… you need to celebrate. And don’t celebrate with the caveat of how you could have done more, or you had additional support. Just. Frikkin. Celebrate. The. Goal. (Please.)

If you’re struggling with goal-setting for you, your team, if you’re not finding ways to celebrate your extended effort… let’s talk. This is what I do.

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Goal setting versus habit formation