Introduction

Goals are always a difficult topic and everyone has a method for going about defining and executing on them. Today I'm going to discuss how I approached setting my goals and how I like to think about them.

Keep in mind that these goals are really intended for setting personal goals. You could follow a similar process for a small business or a startup, but I believe this process is better suited for individual goal setting. Talking about setting goals for an organization is a separate topic I can cover in another post.

With that out of the way, let's get started!

Why set goals?

Setting goals takes time, effort, and some thought. So what is the benefit of setting goals? Why set goals to begin with, you might ask?

That's a great question! This may vary from person to person, but I'll talk a bit about how I view goal setting and why it's such an important process to go through at least once per year.

Direction

The most successful people I've met tend to have a very good idea of the direction they want to go. It might be super high level, an overview, or not that far into the future. However far you choose to set goals for, the idea is to have a very good idea of where you want to be in that given time frame. This gives you a very good sense of direction. Even if you don't move in that direction quickly, you will eventually reach your destination. I tend to set goals as either a 5 year, 1 year, or 1 month goal. The shorter the timeframe, the more definition and more achievable that goal needs to be.

At times, the direction you are going in is not a straight line. Direction is likely the most frequent thing you need to tweak or adjust, especially when you encounter problems in your current method. You shouldn't expect to always be able to travel directly from where you are to where you want to be: sometimes, a detour is in order. Just remember to periodically check in with your goals, and think about ways that you're moving towards those goals or that you're moving adjacent to it to find new paths towards that goal.

Sometimes, you will notice that a goal isn't achievable or at least not achievable in the same way as you originally envisioned based on where you've been since you set those goals. That's alright! Adjust the goals to something that is more appropriate, and keep moving.

Motivation

Setting goals can give you a lot of motivation towards progress. Why? It's part of being human to want to do something, and feeling great once you've achieved that. There is some science involved in this, but I won't get into that.

It's particularly motivating as you are getting closer and closer to achieving your goal. Chasing that feeling will provide a lot of progress and be rewarding, but be careful of burnout. Make sure to pace yourself and set goals that are ambitious enough, but not so ambitious that you can't achieve them. You should be able to reach your goals on a regular cadence providing consistent levels of motivation.

Celebration

What is life about without a little celebration and joy in your life? Goals give you a very clear reason for celebration. This is the payoff on the other side of motivation. Make sure to celebrate even small goals, but the size of the goal should be commensurate with the celebration. Small goals should have small celebrations; likewise, if you achieved an annual goal you didn't think was possible, that calls for a serious celebration!

Everyone celebrates differently. Don't let anyone guilt you into feeling bad about the way you choose to celebrate. This might be a day at the spa, the purchase of a new video game, a new TV you were hoping for, or even just taking an extra day off work to relax and celebrate in quiet (if you can!). Pick something that feels appropriate for the size of the goal you set, and enjoy it regardless of what it is.

Don't start thinking about achieving the next goal until you finished celebrating the last one completely. You won't enjoy the celebration as much if you're stressed about achieving the next one already. If you have a hard time with this, consider taking a few days or even a week off from working towards goals before embarking on the next stage of your journey, and build that into the celebration step.

Progress

When working towards goals, make sure to regularly update your progress. This will ensure that you feel a sense of moving towards those goals. Without progress, most people (including me!) will lose the powerful motivation portion of setting goals.

Having a sense of both direction and progress gives you the most powerful process for achieving goals. I recommend updating progress anywhere from weekly to monthly. If there is no progress to report towards a goal, wait a week. If you still aren't making progress toward a goal, you probably should set aside time blocks for that goal or consider changing or dropping that goal. Sometimes, you're not working towards all your goals at the same time: don't be afraid of just ignoring goals which are being deprioritized for something else you're working towards at this given moment. That might mean changing the timeeframe of a goal, reducing its scope, or just ignoring it for a while until you can get to it.

How to decide what goals to set

The process for deciding what goals to set partially depends on your "why."

Motivating goals

The goals you set should be motivating: you should want to achieve those goals. Don't choose goals that you think would hinder your progress in the future, or that would make you feel uncomfortable or less happy than you are today. Imagine where you want to be in the future, and what specific goals you might be able to achieve to reach that. For example, if I wanted to become a software engineer, I might pick a language I want to learn, and set the goal that I should read a book on that language and complete 3 projects in that language. These are achievable goals, and get you closer to the end goal of becoming a software engineer. If you are very motivated to become a software engineer in this scenario, you are likely to push yourself to achieve these goals and are more likely to make progress. If instead you picked goals that don't move you towards that objective, like taking more vacation, those goals may not motivate you at all.

Achievable goals

You should pick a range of goals that are achievable and ambitious. I will talk in more detail about this in a later section, but you should have a mix of hard to achieve and easy to achieve goals. This allows you the opportunity to have some wins, even if you have a difficult period of time. Those various types of goals should be spread throughout time: you should have some short, medium and long term goals with varying levels of achievability.

Measurable goals

Goals that you set must be measurable. Ideally, every goal can be measured as you make progress, but that's not always possible. Sometimes, an ambitious goal is something like "get a promotion" or "land my dream job.". These can't really be measured, they're binary. Often, this type of goal is really an objective, and you should set a series of goals along the path that will like to that objective. My earlier example about becoming a software engineer applies here, too: you should have a series of checkboxes that you can tick off as goals that will get you closer to, and finally achieving, that objective you set at the beginning.

Some measurable goals are measured in volume, like "send X tweets per month" when growing my personal brand. Try to pick something that you can get a % progress throughout the timeframe you've set, which helps provide some motivation and the urge for a final push towards the end of the timeframe.

Balance ambition with achievability

Balancing the goals based on achievability is an important part of setting goals. You should have a mix of "easier" and "harder" goals that you set for yourself throughout time. This helps ensure that you don't feel demotivated by not achieving every single goal you've set out to do, which can happen if you're being too ambitious.

When making annual goals, I like to pick a couple of short term, very achievable goals. Then I like to set one very achievable goal and one very ambitious goal for the year. Then I tend to fill in from there based on what I think will motivate me the most throughout the year, and those that are most likely to help improve my life the most.

When looking for a full year of goals, pick one you can definitely achieve, one that will be much harder to achieve (or will require some series of lucky events), and at least one that is somewhere in-between.

Don't setup too many goals! Make sure that you have no more than 5 annual goals. Short term goals you can have more of them, but they should belong as sub-goals of your 5 for the year.

Executing on goals

Once you've set your goals, what next? Some people get stuck at this stage.

Look at each of the goals you've set for yourself, and pick one. What concrete things can you start doing NOW to progress towards that goal? Start doing that right away. Set aside some time each day or each week, whichever works for you, to work towards that goal. You should be laser focused on one goal at the start, and as you start making progress, you can start working towards a second goal. Each week, pick a goal you are the most motivated to achieve and set aside time for that. If you make time for your goals, and start using that time, you will start making progress and achieving those goals.

This is usually the most difficult part, and everybody has a different way to execute on their goals. Pick a flow that works for you, schedule time to be able to work towards your goals, and adjust as necessary. The more you do this, the more comfortable you will get and the more likely you'll be able to make serious progress towards your goals. Everyone is different and how you go through this process will vary. Personally, I create time blocks dedicated towards a specific goal a few times each week. These blocks should be at least 30 minutes, but can be as long as 2 hours. Don't dedicate too much time to a single goal: you will burn out and be less motivated overall. If you have large time blocks available, pick additional goals to work towards in the time block that motivate you at that moment.

Conclusion

In this article, we covered my recommended process for considering goals, setting them, and executing on them. We also discussed why goals are beneficial, and how you can leverage them to get the most out of your life.

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