In the absence of clear goals, life lacks the essential elements of passion, purpose, and drive. When goals lack specificity, navigating your journey becomes considerably more challenging compared to the smoother path that thorough preparation provides from the outset.
Just like in business, the best way to get to where you want to go is with a mix of short, medium, and long-term goals. Each has different benefits and can launch you forward towards the end result that you seek. What ties it all together is enabling goals. These are goals that are formulated as stepping-stones for medium and long-term goals.
Use this step-by-step goal setting strategy to bring your dreams to life:
- Set your long-term goals first: What do you want to achieve in the next few years? These are broad goals that will take some time to achieve, like buying a home, graduating from college, or starting your own business. Your long-term goals are the foundation for goal setting as they define where you want to be in the future.
- Set your medium-term goals next: Let these act as large stepping-stones to help you achieve your goals. For example, if your goal is to obtain a doctorate degree in medicine, let a medium-term goal be to achieve your Bachelor’s degree in the subject, as this is a reasonable goal between where you stand now and the ultimate goal you hope to achieve.
Medium term goals should also have specific time frames in mind. These will keep you moving forward, ensuring that you’re always working toward your long-term goals and aspirations. - Finally, focus on your short-term goals: These are goals that you can achieve more readily. Set short-term goals for each semester or year, for example. These goals guide you toward your ultimate goal.
Long-term goals tend to be the most meaningful and important, which is why they take so much time to achieve. But we should not only focus our attention on the big picture goals, when it is medium and short-term goals that allow us to get there. Focus on all three types of goals when planning for your future.
The more time you take to plan out your goals, the better the results are likely to be. Planning and forethought can go a long way in helping you achieve what you really desire in your life.
Planning Your Goals
The planning phase is the most important stage when it comes to achieving your goals. Planning might come easy or hard for you, but one thing’s for sure, without planning the end goal may not even exist at all.
There are some simple goal setting strategies you can use to make your planning easier and find clarity in your goals.
1. Decide what you want: Whether your goal is lofty or little, decide exactly what it is that you want. Don’t be afraid to take your time to figure out what you want. At some point you’ll need to eventually sift through your thoughts and take action, but make sure you’re acting on what’s most important to you,
2. Be specific: Be very detailed as you develop every part of your goal. Instead of a goal like “I want to be better at delegating,” consider a goal like “I want to delegate well to my team so I can become the leader who focuses on the strategy and big picture.” Just being “better” at delegation is too vague. There are too many options and avenues to take that your mind can’t focus on any one route to your goal.
3. Write it down: Write down your ideas and decisions. It doesn’t matter if you use pencil and paper, a computer, or even a cell phone. What’s important is the fact that you can keep track of a large amount of specific information instead of trying to remember everything. After all, goals only seem real when you see them clearly before you.
4. Break down your goal into manageable steps: If you have a lofty goal, it’ll become manageable if you break it down into smaller pieces. Smaller pieces will make your goal seem less complex and easier to achieve.
5. Repeat the process: Once you’ve found a good system, it’s time to repeat the process. Clarify your other goals that you’d like to achieve.
Don’t Wait For “Someday”
Some of the reasons why people tend to keep their goals vague is that they’re actually afraid of achieving them.
After all, it’s a whole lot easier to put off your goals and do nothing, than to take action to achieve them. But what good is a goal that merely resides on paper?
Once you’ve decided on a clear goal, it’s time to take swift action to make it a reality. Don’t wait for someday to achieve your goals. There’s no time like the present, so get moving.
