5 Steps to Effective Goal Setting for Greater Success

Written by Horng Yuan | Photo by Musse Jereissati on Unsplash 

Have you been finding it too easy to achieve your personal and professional goals?

If your answer is a ‘yes’, you may have goals that have not challenged you at all. In this case, they may not be goals at all.

Where do you think you will end up if you do not have goals to direct your life? As Yogi Berra put it, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else”.

We are in for the long run. We need progressive goals to help us succeed in life and work; these goals will serve as stepping stones for our progression. We also need effective goal setting because it gives us direction and purpose, and provides a standard against which to measure our performance.

If you would like to embrace more progressive goals, the following 5-Step process is for you. It will ensure that your goal setting will result in the success you deserve.

Step 1 - Think About What Matters Most

It is first and foremost crucial to think about what matters most to you, and no one else. Clarify this before jumping straight into any goal setting strategies.

What would you like to have, do, and achieve in life?

What are your instrumental and terminal values? 

There are many who start off by looking at their goals from a monetary perspective, which is not wrong. But then, when they get the raise they have been working for, it brings them no further success or happiness. So, structure your goals around the things you really desire. You cannot really go wrong thereafter.

Step 2. Think Long-Term, Plan Short-Term

Thinking long term is about seeing the big picture, knowing the vision of your life. But note that you can never plan completely for a long-term goal or situation; life is full of uncertainties, many of which are beyond your control. Hence, the most effective and practical way is to plan short-term goals and center them around your long-term thinking.

Short-term goals are simpler, smaller, and more manageable. When you accomplish them one by one, you move closer to what you want to achieve in the long term. This is a proven way to set yourself up for success, one step at a time.

Step 3. Monitor Key Results

Effective goal setting is incomplete without key results because they are stepping stones to your goals. Each goal that leads you closer to success should contain key results. For instance, if you aim to save three thousand dollars,

What are the actual key results?

What are the moves you make?

What do you do to make it happen?

According to Gary Latham’s SMART system, your goals should be measurable and written in quantifiable terms. You need to have a way to measure and monitor actual performance against desired performance standards. Checkpoints are required to evaluate progress beginning from when you start to the time you expect to accomplish your goal. 

So, to save three thousand dollars, you may want to start saving twenty dollars daily for the next five months.

Step 4. Think Ten Times Bigger

Many people have a tendency to focus on small details. For instance, you will find investment bankers talking about percentages, that 1% or 5% of returns, which may work for them but not the average person who does not understand and see the actual measurable benefits. Therefore, you should think bigger, like ten times bigger!

Note that when you are thinking big, you are in reality thinking small, because there is always a bigger big. So, each time you write down a goal, ask yourself, "Is this the best I can do?" Push it a bit more, because thinking bigger will bring you further and greater success.

Step 5. Think Ahead

It is understood that you cannot think about all the outcomes of a particular goal or situation. But that should not be an excuse for you to not to think ahead; making a progressive goal will always require you to think beyond the present.

Thinking ahead means to anticipate, account for, and plan for events or situations that can change and lead to unfortunate possibilities and obstacles that do not favour and benefit you. Thinking ahead will help you decide and make more actionable goals, and determine solutions ahead of time in the event the obstacles do materialise. You will realise that such an obstacle is not an obstacle, but simply a Plan B to your goal!

Let the 5-Step Process Work for You

Follow these five steps to effective goal setting if you have been feeling stuck and discouraged by your lack of progress and success. The process will get you back on track and towards the goals and success that you are seeking!