Get Good at Goals.
Lifestyle & Productivity
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Lifestyle & Productivity 〰️
I took the Enneagram test a few years ago and found out that I’m a Type 3: The Achiever.
Although there are a wide variety of opinions on personality tests and I simply do not have the expertise to make a strong claim about the validity or usefulness of either these tests or debates about them, I did find one relevant conclusion about my “Type“ particularly interesting:
I get really worked up about goals.
I LOVE goals. In my 28 years of existence, I have set more goals than I dare to admit, and have painfully failed at the majority of them. I set goals about health. I set goals about relationships. I set goals about money, my time, my business, my family. I read books and listen to podcasts about goals.
The reality in this is that I have invested a lot of time into good and bad goals.
I say all this because I feel like I have a lot of experience when it comes to creating goals now, and now I’m at a point in life where I think I finally have some useful tips and tricks to get you in a good place to start setting some intentional and purposeful goals.
Tip 1: Build Your Goals into Your Values.
The secret I’ve found to creating goals that actually work goes as follows: You want simple, easy-to-define goals that not only accomplish what you want them to, but also create habits that stick with you to help you achieve goals like it in the future. There’s an element to healthy goal creation that focuses on you as a person instead of just the task seeking to be accomplished.
For example, let’s say you want to save $10,000 this year in a high-interest savings account. That’s a great goal (everyone should probably do this goal, but that’s for a different author to tackle). You could say I’m going to do this by not eating out the year, cutting back on my grocery bill, cancelling my unused subscriptions, etc.
That’s a pretty good plan! But what happens in three months when suddenly, you’re tired of eating ramen and bananas for every meal. A brand new restaurant opened up down the street that you’re dying to try out. That new show everyone is talking about is released... but it’s on that other streaming platform that you don’t have.
Eventually, you’ll break. We break, not only because our strategy for achieving goals is short-sighted, but because we don’t invest our values into the goal-creation process.
Imagine if we took that goal, to save $10,000 this year, but worked hard to intentionally weave-in our values into the goal. We glance back at the Values section of this guide and identify 3 values that relate to this goal.
Family — You love spending time (and money) on your family. New cars, toys, and trips! What if we were to re-orient this value to focus on financial security for your family. If the whole family can be envisioned to see how saving = safety if someone loses their job or an unexpected expense arises, it can turn into a huge motivation that has the entire gang on board to tackle.
Food — This is actually a value of mine and my wife, so it hits close to home. If we love eating good food, cutting back on spending can sound like a really devastating change. But, if we’re able to shift our mindset from what we’re losing (eating at that expensive new sushi restaurant), and embrace what we could gain, (the knowledge and fun memories of at-home date nights where we try out new recipes from food we’ve bought based on our meal-plan budget), you can easily turn this loss into a gain.
Entrepreneurship — Easy one. If you save $10,000 you not only build yourself a buffer of money for you to lean on if you were to quit your current job to start a new business, but also a stash you can pull from if you need to buy materials to get your business launched from an idea to a reality.
This step is huge when it comes to sticking with your goals. If you’re able to couch your goal into a bigger vision for how this goal serves you as you pursue what matters most in your life, it’ll help keep your ship afloat when the waves of life start to crash up against it.
Tip 2: Focus on the Quality of Your Goals Instead of the Quantity of Your Goals.
I think the most common pitfall people struggle with comes from the fact that it’s easier to make a lot of disconnected, decent goals than it is to create a few, really good ones. This is my biggest temptation for me when I try to make goals. I’ll look at the month, the quarter, the year and try to pack it in with everything I want to accomplish in that period of time, and never consider how realistic it is for me actually get these goals done.
If you’re a kindred spirit of mine and often find yourself setting 5, 10, even 15 goals a year, I encourage you to slow down a little bit and think strategically about what you really want to accomplish.
There’s a reason why big tech companies only release a few products a year: in order to create a great product, it takes a lot of work to make it good.
We should think about our goals the same way. I generally make no more than three annual goals and three quarterly goals. I do this because I know if I do more, I’m setting myself up for failure.
Tip 3: Fully Integrate Your Goals into Your Life.
This is the step that really is going help you get traction on achieving your goals. Most people think of goals as something extra they add onto their daily lives. They aren’t willing to make any changes to what they were already doing, which leaves them in a spot where any goal seems like something extra added onto their already busy schedule.
DON’T BE LIKE THAT.
If you really want to get your goals taken care of, you have to be willing to adopt these goals into your daily routines.
Think commitment to the long-term goal over the immediate gratification of the moment. We’re looking for lifestyle changes that help you to accomplish something meaningful in 3-6 months.
Have a goal to get more clients? Then schedule times each week when you strategize and attempt to find them.
Have a goal to get that promotion? Then figure out ways to make you the most desired candidate, schedule a meeting with your boss to discuss it, and then prioritize what you do each day to make your supervisor beg you step into that new role.
Have a goal to declutter your house? Then create a plan, rent a dumpster if you have to, and clear your weekend schedule so you can go crazy on those old clothes and dusty boxes in your attic.
Don’t fall into the trap that goals are easy to accomplish just because you have them. They take time. They take energy. And they take determination to stick with them.
Set Good Goals, then Go Get em.
My goal is for you to accomplish your goals. I think you’d be amazed by how much you can accomplish if you plan, strategize, and execute goals that are intentional and purposeful.
