Take life as it comes, they say, but does that philosophy work in real life? Imagine the one time you missed an important deadline at work, or a project at college, because you didn’t prepare in advance? The anxiety, the madness, the chaos, was it really worth it? Maybe not. As we mature as adults in this growing world, we need to keep in pace with all facets of our life- be it social or personal. Goals, thus become an important part of our lives and helps us be a little more prepared and have something to look forward to in the future. Goal setting is defined as the planning of an action or a series of steps to guide an individual towards an ultimate goal. How then can we define a goal? Simply put, goals refer to an idea of the future or a desired result that an individual envisions and aspires to achieve. An effective goal setting process helps us understand where we currently are, helps us choose where we want to go, and assess the best steps to take to reach our ultimate outcome goals.
Why should we set goals?
All the successful people, from Bill Gates to MS Dhoni, have all reached their level of success because of having an end outcome or a goal.
- Setting goals helps you envision a future and motivates you to work for it.
- It also helps in organising your ideas, resources and time to prevent chaos later.
- It raised your confidence as you see a future ahead, that is purely based on your hard work, planning, and ability.
- It also helps you monitor your own progress, and make you more self-aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
Types of Goals
- Outcome Goals: These refer to specific goals that spell out results to be achieved in the end. For example, if an individual plans to lose 30kgs of weight, he has a set goal in mind and works towards it.
- Process goals: These refer to the behaviors or strategies that help us to perform well and increase the likelihood of achieving our desired outcome. In the previous example, the process of losing weight may include reducing calories, riding a bicycle, exercising. For example, I will exercise 30 minutes a day, for five days, in a month.
- Performance Goals: These refer to the standards at which we will perform our process goals. For example, lose weight by eating 1200 calories a day or less.
Facets where goal setting is essential
- 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?
- Attitude – Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.)
- 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?
Goal Setting and outcomes
Goal setting can affect the desired outcomes in four ways:
- Choice:
- Effort
- Persistence
- Cognition
Rules of Goal setting
- Divide goals into short-term, mid-term and long-term
- Combine the different types of goals for maximum success
- Set goals that motivate you
- Set SMART goals- Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound
- Make a to-do list or write your goals, so that it becomes more tangible
- Make an action plan
- Be persistent, stick with them!
General Guidelines
- State each goal as a positive statement – Express your goals positively – “Execute this technique well” is a much better goal than “Don’t make this stupid mistake.”
- Be precise – Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you’ll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
- Set priorities – When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
- Write goals down – This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
- 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.
- 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!
- Set realistic goals – It’s important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.
Be it New Years’ resolution or your vision for the next 5 years, plan ahead of time. It’ll help you save an of time, effort and money. In APJ Abdul Kalam’s words, “To succeed in your mission, You must have single-minded devotion to your goal.”
HR Team | MyOS