We continuously choose our priorities, what we focus our time and energy on and what we want to achieve. We may be conscious of the direction and magnitude of our priorities, our choices, the effort, and the opportunity costs. Or we may not. The invitation to be more intentional about where and how you direct your energy is about goal setting. Your personalised definition of success and clarity about what you value means you are more likely to set goals, make choices and engage in behaviours that align with what you have decided is important to you right now. When you become energised by creating thoughts and feelings about the goal’s purpose, your commitment to the outcome is likely to increase. Reflecting on goal success means understanding your values.
Ready for more?
As soon as you write down your goal, and you are one small actionable step, your pathway to progress often feels more realistic and you are more likely to become energised to take more action.
SMART goals
And keeping it SMART, an acronym and framework that provides motivation and a clear call to action, helps. SMART simply stands for: specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, and time-framed.
S – what is your specific goal?
M – how will you measure your progress?
A – how attractive is your goal to you?
R – is this goal a realistic outcome?
T – what time frames have you set to hold yourself accountable?
One short-term SMART goal at a time will lead you to the next short-term SMART goal. Each step in the right direction means you are more likely to keep self-directing your behaviour in meaningful ways.
Chunking down your goal into small steps help you understand the tasks that contribute to your bigger goal and helps creates a timeline to get you there. Creating a series of realistic sub-goals, helps you feel a constant and growing sense of achievement, which in turn focuses your efforts even ‘SMARTer’.
Your turn to get started
A small goal setting exercise to help you start.
Here’s three simple tasks:
1. Decide what is important to you right now and ask yourself ‘why is this important’?
2. Write it down – type it up – keep it clear and obvious, and
3. Chunk the goal down i.e. define one small step you can do and decide when you will do it!
After you complete these steps, do it again. Then do it again, and again. Small steps make big differences. So, what are you waiting for? What do you want to achieve?
Let’s have a chat if you decide you don’t want to go on the journey alone.