Get Wise to Goal Setting

Setting SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) has never worked for me — and is especially challenging for personal goals. Last year I wrote about alternatives to goal setting and I embraced a word of the year instead. But it wasn’t enough of an anchor, leaving me somewhat adrift. This year (thanks to my coaching training) I have finally managed to create clear, tangible goals that excite me and feel more liberating than the average SMART goal, but only after hauling myself out of various traps along the way.

Setting personal goals that are fulfilling and rewarding involves carefully navigating potential pitfalls and moderating our enthusiasm to come up with targets we can sustain. I’ll share a few reflections here on what to look out for, and I’ve also created some questions to help you discover what you want to work towards in the year ahead.

Goal Discovery

Finding ideas for your goals is something no one talks about. We’re supposed to just know what we want, and set “big hairy audacious goals” to go and get it. When in fact, perhaps some years you know what you want and in other years, you don’t.

All too often, when we think about goal setting, our minds drift into the future and we quickly start to feel at sea. Instead, the answer to the question “what do I want to strive for?” might lie in the immediate past, and we need to extract it from a busy year of experiences and learnings.

Revisiting things we learned, advice we valued and moments that brought us fulfilment in the past year is the springboard we need to create next year’s goals.

I’ve created a short but impactful list of questions to help you tease them out. Click here to access them.

Goals Out of Control

If you cannot take 100% responsibility and accountability for the goal you’ve chosen, it’s unlikely to lead to fulfilment. Take for example, a goal to achieve your full bonus at the end of the year. Unless you decide your own bonus award (in which case it sounds suspiciously like marking your own homework) this is a fool’s errand. Your personal goals cannot depend on someone else’s approval.

Goals like these are outcome-focused, rather than effort focused. Effort-focused goals are much more rewarding because they motivate us to focus on what we put in, not what we get out. And often, what we get out may not be what we expect.

This is where a literal interpretation of “measurable” in the SMART goals framework can cause problems. It forces us to measure our projected success based on whatever benchmarks we can access. Whether it’s weight loss or business growth, we research benchmarks on the internet or in relation to our peers and make our best guess — a sure-fire way to make our goal a gateway to continuously comparing ourselves with others.

Instead, we need to run our own race. What growth do we want to see in relation to where we are today? And most importantly, what efforts do we need to put in to help us get there?

In this scenario, the goal is not “raise $15M in funds for my company” but a series of tangible goals like “build meaningful relationships with fifty investors” that are within my control and will form the steps on the journey.

Still unsure where to start with goal-setting? Kickstart your new year with a short self-discovery exercise here.

Don’t Goal Overboard

Overwhelming sets of goals get forgotten. Firstly, there’s the sheer number we set for ourselves: once the New Year hangover clears, we excitedly open our new journals and scribble down our ambitious goals. Unfortunately, researchers in the US discovered 43% of New Years’ resolutions are abandoned by the end of January — no doubt the same is true for long lists of goals.

Brené Brown recommends sticking to 2 values maximum. It’s no bad idea to use this as a rule of thumb for goal setting either. If two can’t span the different dimensions of your life you want to cover (e.g. work, self, family) then stretch to maximum two more. Resist the temptation to bog yourself down in more than you can reasonably remember.

Once we’ve got a select number of goals, many of us fall into another trap: they’re simply too far away. Goals that are too lofty, or can only be worked on later in the year will inevitably be forgotten, and are not in our control enough to be relevant to us.

The goals we set should be goals we can graft towards most days, by taking tiny steps in the right direction. It’s also worth watching out for conditional goals that depend on something else happening: “when my injury heals, I will start exercise classes again”. Instead, what movement can you do now, before that time comes?

Lastly, it’s worth remembering that the only goals we will stick to are goals that make us feel good. There’s a reason that punishing New Year’s resolutions don’t make it past the end of January. Once the feeling of a fresh start wears off, we feel worse for following them, not better. Set goals that will make you feel good each day you take a step towards them — life’s too short to set goals that don’t let us have fun along the way.

Happy New Year, Good luck, and if you’re stuck, these questions may help.