Personal Growth Demystified: Goals
Everything you should know about goals — practically explained
Connecting the dots …
We talked about vision earlier… Just to be clear — You might not be that good at seeing your life in 20/30/40 years but you can do that in a short term like a month, six months.. a year … You might want to learn some new skill as playing a piano, a new language, or some interesting dancing style?
It’s up to you.
And you know what? That’s also okay. Even if you don’t have a life vision in front of you, you can have a vision that can come to life in a short term — although having a life vision makes things perfectly inline.
I often hear people say “Planning makes you rigid, makes you soulless — like a machine. Be spontaneous, you can’t be in control. You shouldn’t be. That’s life.” Well … I don’t agree that by defining and planning our future we give up on beauties of life.
Quite the opposite!
This way we employ all of our energy to what makes sense to us, what makes us happy. That means that each step leads us to something that we consciously want. We are in control. This way we live meaningful life!
Okay! Now, when this is clear — When we know what matters to us and what we’re willing to fight for — let’s properly define it and create a strategy to get there. There are many ways towards that but since we have life in our hands now, we will design the path.
How would you properly define your goal?
Think of life as a sinusoid where peaks represent goals. Goals are those states that we live (pluses and minuses that we collect on our path). You can think of them as of “living destinations”. Let’s find out how we can properly define them.
For a goal to be a goal it needs to be compliant with SMART.
S — specific
M — measurable
A — achievable
R — relevant
T — time oriented
[Specific] It has to be specific enough so it refers just to one thing and not something in general. I will be happier, healthier, smarter… This would be just some examples of not being specific enough.
[Measurable] It has to be concrete enough, if we want to get rid of weight we need to specify for how many, we should not say something like a few pounds but as an example — 10 pounds.
[Achievable] Is it achievable? Put your feet on the ground and be realistic for a moment. Ask yourself and be honest, is it achievable?
Growing wings might be an interesting option but not possible, but that’s my perspective. That might be possible in yours :)
[Relevant] Is that yours or someone else’s goal? Is it important to you? Does it brings you closer to the vision?
To many of us parents plan future, no matter if that’s about the college that we should enroll or habits that we should have, the way we should live our life… Although their intentions are good, that can lead us living their dreams and putting ours on the side.
I heard a story once… It’s about a man that now knows his purpose and what makes him happy and fulfilled. In early childhood, he enjoyed remembering numbers and repeating them back. And he was quite good at that. One day, neighbor came into his parents house and saw that. He praised him and said “That kid has talent for math, he will be a magnificent mathematician.” That day belief was planted into his head. Those words engraved in his mind and based on them he lived his next 20 years. He even finished faculty of mathematics although he realized that that’s not his story and he doesn’t enjoy living it. Luckily he realized and at this moment he lives his life with full lungs — looking happily forward to each new step that brings him closer to HIS vision.
So … Take some time and think if your goals are really yours. Don’t live dreams of others, but start working on yours!
[Time oriented] It has to be time oriented. Think of the time frame in which you could achieve it and set it.
A month, a year or ?
People often make a mistake and phrase it as:
“I will get leaner in next few months.”
Let’s ignore other mistakes but concentrate on time oriented one.
“Next few months” doesn’t tell much. Being more specific here would define the concrete period, time frame in which we will focus on achieving our goal.
Just be precise. Define a date.
And bonus …
[Described in the present] When we set goals we set them in the future but when we describe them, we should describe as we live them in this same moment. This helps making our goal vision more real and easily reachable. Planning your goals is just not enough, you must live them too. First in your mind and second in reality.
Phrasing it as “At first of November I will have 120 pounds” would be incorrect since it’s described as in the future.
The correct version would be then: “It’s first of November. I have 120 pounds. I lost 10 pounds in the last month.”
Action steps
We have a goal definition. But we need steps to follow.
There are many ways to our goal and that’s a good thing. We should be flexible in that regard. When something doesn’t work we should analyze, learn and move forward taking some other ways if the one picked doesn’t work.
Action steps are concrete steps that will bring our goal vision to reality.
Let’s get back to our example. Goal definition is an answer to WHAT.
“It’s first of November. I have 120 pounds. I lost 10 pounds in the last month.”
Action steps would be an answer to HOW.
So, how will we get there? Or nicely phrased “How did we get here? What did we do to lose 10 pounds in the last month?” (Put your mind to think as we already live our vision)
Some steps would be:
- Exercise 3x a week (Here we should also be more specific… What kind of exercise? For how long? …)
- Diet change (What kind of diet?)
- Building healthy habits (Which habits, how?)
…
Having a list of concrete actions is a great thing. But it’s just a list. Believing in it and working on it will make some real changes.
One more important thing… Avoid being just a blind follower of your plans. Schedule an hour or so for a review in a week and analyze what are the results. If something is not right — fix it, if something unexpected happen — adjust. Be flexible on that path.
Let’s put everything together
Let’s start with the wrongly phrased goal. Believe it or not… this is a common way people formulate goals.
Wrongly formulated one:
I will learn a new language
With knowledge that we now have — let’s fix it.
First step would be to pull it through SMART.
It’s not specific enough. We have no sign of which language we’re gonna learn. For which there is a need or motivation?
Let’s make up some background for our story …
Let’s say we’re about to live in Spain in a year. Therefore we have a need to learn Spanish. Our life wish was having a life in Spain. We often dreamed going there and enjoying sunny days… That means that we’re also motivated and it’s aligned with our vision. So — it’s Spanish.
I will learn Spanish
Specific — Yes
Is it measurable? We should make it measurable so that we know when we succeed. What it means for me to learn Spanish? How will I know whether I learned it or how close am I to that goal?
I will learn Spanish. My knowledge verification will be successfully passed LEVEL(B2) exam at school X.
Measurable— Yes
Okay, is that achievable? We have many examples where people passed B2 level of some language, even Spanish. So, to our perception this is achievable. I know.. We still have no time frame.. What if we expect to learn it and pass an exam in a week? Yea, after going though all the steps we can reiterate again.
Achievable — Yes, so far
Is it relevant to us? Is this our goal or someone else’s?
Definitely ours. We mentioned our dreams of Spain and our life there. This is part of our vision.
Relevant — Yes
Is it time oriented? No, it’s not. We have no time period in which we should learn Spanish.
I will learn Spanish next year — at 1st of January 2021 I will know Spanish. My knowledge verification will be successfully passed LEVEL(B2) exam at school X.
And last but not least — let’s phrase it as we already live it. That will bring down some barriers that we might have and make it more real to us.
It’s 1st of January 2021. I learned Spanish. I verified my knowledge by passing B2 level exam at school X.
Time oriented— Yes
Based in the present — Yes
Another round of SMART would not hurt, making sure if it is still compliant with it. Now we have time frame and we can again ask us if it is still achievable —I would say it is.
And again, before thinking about concrete steps, I would test my motivation and real need and deeply think if this is what I want and if this will make me happier.
Another important question that you should ask yourself is if your goal is ecological — would you make any harm to you or someone else by achieving it? If the answer is YES, you should change something so that is not the case anymore or shouldn’t do it.
Next thing would be an action steps — concrete actions that will bring us to our vision.
Questions that can help:
How did we get to learn Spanish?
Which steps did we make?
- Duolingo installed (language learning app)
- Finished level X on Duolingo (here we can also be more specific, and make some actions that did bring us to this level)
- Went to school Y, enrolled and finished all the levels up to B2 and B2
- Verified my knowledge by getting the official B2 certificate from the highly recognized issuer Z
- …
When defining both goal definition or concrete action steps, try to be more specific and describe in a more detailed way. That will help you see your goal more clear and real.
As an addition you can write down some beliefs and habits that can support you achieving your goals and try to implement them. Painting, somehow describing, framing your goal and having it near the bed can help you motivate and feed your mind that it’s important for you.
One more time I will repeat — Don’t just blindly follow your plans but analyze and be flexible on that path.
The most common mistakes
Here are some of the most common mistakes people make when setting their goals:
- Not aligned with their values
- Not specific enough, concrete or measurable. Not compliant to SMART (To get rich. To be fast. To live a happy life…)
- Goals that they make are turned to others, not ourselves
- No deadlines, not time oriented
- Not doing a review, not measuring the progress
- Not learning from mistakes
- Lack of motivation. No rewards, no praises …
This is just a part of the series of blog posts demystifying personal growth. I suggest you to read the previous ones if you haven’t already. Link to the start of the series: Personal Growth Demystified Series.
Conclusion
Now you should be able to determine what’s important for you and how to chase it.
There is no better way and time to test your knowledge than now.
Since New Year is approaching, you might start by writing your New Year’s resolution.
One more thing…
Just don’t feel pressured, if you are not feeling like working on yourself today don’t — take a break. Just keep this somewhere in the pocket, it might help in the future. Nothing is more important than your health … Let’s beat this virus and better tomorrow will come!
Thanks for staying with me to the end :)
Series will be continued next year and many more interesting topics will come. Stay tuned :)Stay Safe and Healthy!
Happy Holidays and all the best to you in the year to come!
