The Skill of Goal Setting

A short blog post on goal setting - originally published 2nd August 2022.

“If you don’t make the time to work on creating the life that you want, you’re going to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” - Kevin Ngo

I wish I had known this when I was younger - I’d have felt a lot more confident in my own ability to go for the things I want, knowing I had a plan in place. Although I appreciate every twist and turn my life has taken because it’s all led to where I am now, there are times when I do wonder what I could have achieved if I learnt how to set effective goals at an earlier age. More importantly, where I would be now, if I knew then how to stay accountable for and persist with those goals.

When we look at the most successful people in life, they are all excellent at setting goals: successful business people, top athletes, high achievers in all fields. To learn this skill in childhood means you have more time to refine it, and learn how to be really effective at setting and crucially, achieving goals.

I work with children as young as 7 on goal setting and some people are honestly baffled by this. They wonder what sorts of goals a 7 year old could possibly have. These same people are the ones who think nothing of the fact that we have much higher expectations of those same 7 year olds than we had placed on us. When the curriculum was changed back in 2014 and some concepts which we weren’t taught until secondary school were now being taught in primary, these are the people who didn’t bat an eyelid. If we can expect our children to cope with a more rigorous and challenging curriculum, then why do we not hold the same standards for them when it comes to setting goals for themselves? At 7 years old, many of these children are developing that sense of independence, they may be about to go on their first residential, where they’ll be away from home for a night or two, often for the first time. If we can trust them with this, why can’t we trust them to tell us what they want for themselves, and serve as a support for them to achieve this? Of course, some children will want to have a career at 7 which they no longer want to pursue when they’re 8, least of all 18, but by holding a safe space for them to explore these options by setting goals to work towards, the message we are sending is that whatever it is they choose to do, there is a way to achieve it, and they will be supported along the way.

To set effective goals:

First, focus on how you want to feel. Ask yourself: Why are you setting this goal? What do you hope to feel like when you’ve achieved it? What does this goal bring to your life? This will be your why and it will be your anchor, it will be the thing that keeps you motivated when it feels hard. Many people find it useful to do this visually - creating a vision board of their desire to help keep them motivated and to help cultivate the belief that it can happen.
Make your goals SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-Bound) - we’ll look at these in more detail later in the article.
Frame your goals positively. For example, ‘I want to improve my focus’ is more positive than ‘I want to stop being distracted’. Studies have shown that we are more likely to achieve our goal if we frame it positively as we feel more optimistic about it.
Set personal/process goals, not outcome goals. By this, I mean a goal which you have control over. For example, setting a goal like ‘I will spend 1 hour each evening revising for my maths exam’ is much easier to keep control of, rather than ‘I will get 100% in my maths exam’, which could be affected by a number of other factors beyond our control.
Make an Action Plan. Write down your goal and the actions you will need to take to achieve it, in order of priority. Give yourself deadlines on this action plan and as you cross each small step off as you complete it, seeing yourself making progress with help you to stay on track and avoid procrastinating.

To make a goal SMART, you need to make them Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-Bound:

Specific

Goals which are well-defined and clear helps you to understand what your actual goal is and to create actions to achieve it.

Measurable

You should be able to prove you have achieved your goal. Include precise amounts, dates, and so on in your goals so you can measure your degree of success.

Actionable

Make sure there are actions to complete, which are within your control, to help you achieve your goal.

Realistic

Set goals which are challenging but achievable - if it’s too easy you lose out on a sense of accomplishment, but if it’s too hard it is easy to become disheartened and you’re more likely to give up.

Time-Bound

Set deadlines for your goal. When do you want to achieve it by? This gives you something to aim for and can avoid procrastination, and create a healthy sense of urgency.

Remember to review your goals regularly to make sure they are still relevant, valuable and what you want. Adapt them as you need to, goals can be fluid, and often it’s the ability to adapt as you progress that determines how successful you will be.

Categories: : Action Planning, Goal Setting, Taking Action