For a long time, the topic “how to set goals in life” seemed to me somehow meaningless, boring or too incomprehensible and difficult. But my attitude towards long-term goals in life changes when suddenly I understand that something that I have achieved in life was once just a formulation in the process of doing an exercise on how to correctly write down goals.
For example, I once imagined how I would beof people. I, they say, will work in the evenings in such a cozy psychological center, I will have consultations and trainings. All this will be close to my parents’ house so that I can leave the child to them when I have one. When I came up with this idea, it seemed completely unrealistic, but I continued to dream about it intensely. This was ten years ago. I didn't think it would come true so quickly. After all, this is exactly what has been happening every day for the last eight years.
1) Do you want to avoid having some problems at all? Learn to set long-term goals in life.
Imagine your journey from home to. Or any other route (painfully) familiar to you. Remember how you walk along it. Especially when you're in a hurry. Now try to remember how you went there the first or second time. What is the difference? How is it different from a regular walk in the same area? When you drive along your usual route, you know perfectly well where you can take shortcuts, you automatically follow the optimal route. Because in fact, you have only two points of this route in your head: the start and the end. When are you just walking or driving to your future place?the first time, you perform many additional actions, you have more intermediate landmarks. And the path may be longer and more difficult.
Why plan if you still need to do the same amount of work?
Imagine all the problems you have when you do something last minute before a deadline. Has your computer started to slow down? Annoys! Did someone ask for something?! All the queues on this day are moving slowly as if out of luck... the transport, as if out of spite, slowly trudges and piles up in traffic jams at every traffic light! So many experiences! And neighbor Vasya calmly got dressed and went to the cinema, eating sunflower seeds. He just knows how to set long-term goals. He doesn't have any rush. And he also plans hisback in July, so he doesn’t know what “all tickets are sold out” means.
That is, the point is not that “he has the same problems, they are just distributed over time.” No. Some problems don't arise for him at all. He keeps in mind the final destination of his route and therefore knows where to take shortcuts and not do unnecessary work.
I am sometimes very amazed when I discover this in my life. For example, you can schedule meetings with friends in advance. Then situations simply don’t arise when I want to go visit someone, call them, and they’re all busy. This problem simply does not exist.
Do you know what I mean? Has this ever happened to you?
Like and write in the comments what goals you have in life now or what problems you would like to avoid.
2) Logical and emotional approach. How to set goals in a pleasant way for yourself.
There are two ways to set goals. And most likely one of them will suit you better, but the second will be more difficult.
The logical approach is more like writing a clear plan. They write a lot about this in books and articles. I recently talked about this at a webinar on self-realization, and maybe soon I will conduct another training on this topic. In order for the goal to work for you and not against you, in order to understand how to achieve a goal in life, it is very useful to write down the goal so that it meets certain criteria, for example, it has a tangible and specific result. Also, for example, clearly formulating the first steps towards achieving a goal helps a lot.
How to set goals if you are not used to writing everything down logically and structurally
Some people are upset that they cannot clearly and correctly formulate everything according to the criteria, while they can often imagine the desired result much better. In this case, emotional-figurative methods are suitable. You can make colorful collages by intuitively cutting out the first pictures you like from magazines, or imagine your goal in detail during meditation. Here it is important to let yourself go and stop reasoning: “what is the right thing to want?”, “is this real? “I’m dreaming something painfully,” you should rather listen to your intuition and feel like a passive observer.
What is life like there when the goal is achieved?
What's around you? How do you feel? What do you see? What sounds are coming to you? What do you want in that new state? How bright is this picture? Try to look at everything in detail, listen to your sensations in your body, to the sounds around you.
3) While you are resting, it is working.
Who is he? Your brain.
“Why plan? We’ll have to make an effort later...”some people think and refuse to plan anything.
But here is the next trick. The fact is that when you imagine in detail and in detail what life will be like when you achieve your goal, you are at that moment deceiving your brain.
How so?
The fact is that the brain can hardly distinguish between reality and fiction. Just as in a dream, we rarely realize that we are dreaming. Both in reality and in fantasy, the brain simply works, processes information. For example, if you imagine the taste of lemon, you begin to salivate. Although there is no lemon. Accordingly, when you often and carefully think through your goal, the brain automatically, on autopilot, throughout the day looks for all possible ways to fit reality to that picture. He becomes really more receptive to all opportunities and signals that are associated with the goal. This is an involuntary process. I'm talking about brain activity that you can't control.
This is similar to how our dreams are affected by everything we did before going to bed. If you ate Caesar salad during the day, you greatly increase the likelihood that this is what you will “order” in your dream. The brain does this for you.
4) Choose a pleasant difficulty level and timing. How to write down goals correctly so that it doesn’t only make things worse.
If you set the bar too high for yourself, it can lead to, dissatisfaction and apathy.
If you set a goal that is too simple for yourself, you will be bored and at some point you will prefer something more fun, albeit useless.
If you choose too short a time frame for achieving a goal, it can cause overexertion and emotional setback. Plus, random circumstances become more significant, which may slightly disrupt your plans. This will be the case when it would have been better not to set goals at all.
If you choose a time period that is too long, it will not motivate you. In this case, it is worth coming up with intermediate, more specific goals and steps.
How to set goals correctly.
When you choose a difficulty level, considerin this area. The goal should be challenging enough to pique your interest, but simple enough that you can associate it with the next step up from where you are now.
The deadline should, on the one hand, be foreseeable, and on the other hand, realistic enough to, for example, give oneself the opportunity to make a mistake in the process and change the strategy. Space for maneuver. For example, a period of three months for some purposes may be more optimal than just one month or a whole year.
5) Sometimes the goal is not achieved because it is formulated incorrectly.
If you don't achieve a goal, it's not always your fault. Instead oftry to focus on how this statement could be formatted so that the goal becomes more realistic.
In this case, it helps to consult with a person who has already achieved this goal.
For example, sometimes before “starting to play sports regularly, at least 2 times a week,” it helps to first “find a (game/dance/group/individual/calm) sport that will be enjoyable.”
6) Let your goal energize you, not suffocate you.
One of my clients told a story that some of the goals that she had once set during training began to seriously upset her at some point. She no longer wanted to achieve the results themselves; what caused her more unpleasant feelings was the fact that she had not kept her promise to achieve these goals.
In this story, it turned out that the set goal became some kind of additional internal critic. In this case, it’s really better to do without goals at all than to constantly scold yourself.
In general, understanding how to set goals makes sense if you are ready to draw energy and additional strength from your goal and a pleasant image of results. Goals for the sake of goals themselves, it seems to me, make no sense. Don't become a hostage to your ideas.
7) “Plans don’t come true, but that doesn’t make you stop planning.” How to achieve your goal if everything doesn't go according to plan.
Plans can be adjusted. Plans need to be adjusted. Why then set goals at all? See previous paragraphs. A correctly set or presented goal energizes you and directs your attention to where it is needed. But life brings its own adjustments. You have every right to stop wanting what you wanted before or to reformulate your goal taking into account new information received.
8) Ask for help. From the outside you can see what you are overly focusing on and what you forgot to take into account.
It is always useful to consult with a close friend, someone who has already achieved similar goals, or a psychologist. Moreover, you can formulate the request exactly like this: “help me, please, to formulate your goals in such and such a matter as specifically, clearly and simply as possible.” How can this be useful?
The fact is that it is very difficult for us to notice to ourselves that we focus too much on something, get hung up on something, and what we don’t take into account at all, what we forgot to take into account. Some outside listener may say something sensible in time,.
Well, don’t forget to get down to business later.And then some people get so carried away with planning that they forget to at least try to start implementing their plans.
What advice did you like best? Write in the comments!
What helps and inspires you in this matter, what are your secrets in goal setting?
Good luck to everyone! Sincerely,
Elena Zaitova.
General goals that determine the main direction of production development imply an appropriate style of management and decision-making throughout the life of the company. But this is far from enough to manage companies. It needs to set more specific and specific tasks for all divisions and departments. First of all, it is necessary to develop goals for a period of 3 to 5 years. These goals are called long-term goals. They are designed for the company as a whole and its structural units. In addition, they provide the basis for organization-wide coordination and a benchmark for determining the degree of success of the company's actions.
In addition, the manager also develops specific short-term goals, which include immediate actions (for 1 year or less). They must, however, be strictly subordinated to the idea of long-term goals. There are eight main areas of goal development. We will talk about them later.
Survival and growth. These concepts are among the most important for any organization. They are reflected in the strategic plan. The manager enters into it such indicators as sales volume, sales growth rate, demand data, etc. Moreover, special attention is paid to growth indicators.
From time to time, companies set out to find the key element that links goals to survival and growth. Growth-oriented organizations never pay enough attention to the goal of meeting customer needs, at least in the first 5 years of their existence. The introduction of new capacities, reducing the firm's dependence on suppliers, and abandoning unprofitable production lines are examples of achieving the goals of survival and growth.
Profitability. The ability of any company to develop from a sufficient level of profitability. A well-oriented business necessarily has in its plan sections characterizing the sources of profit, such as profit from the sale of assets, interest on securities of other companies, revenue from sales of products, revenue from equity participation in other industries.
Resource allocation and risks. Another example of the goals of a business organization can be goals related to the allocation of resources and the prediction of possible risks that arise during the period of the organization's emergence. Goals related to the payment of dividends to shareholders can be classified under the “Allocation of Resources” section.
Production productivity. One of the tasks of a manager of any company is to take care of increasing the level of productivity. And in conditions of growing competition, this task actually comes to the fore. Productivity is the number of products produced or sold per unit of money spent or the number of services provided also per unit of money spent.
Examples include occupancy percentage for a hotel, table occupancy percentage for a restaurant, number of goods sold per unit of cost, or revenue per person. Productivity goals can be set in monetary, physical, or percentage terms. For example, a transportation company might set goals to reduce costs per trip.
Having these types of goals in the firm's plan is an additional point in favor of the manager and will ultimately have a positive impact on profitability.
Competitive position. The most sensitive indicator of a firm's success or failure is its industry market share or its competitive position. Managers typically measure market share by:
1) by the number of goods sold (as a percentage of the industry total);
2) by the number of consumers buying goods from a given company (relative to the total number of consumers. This indicator is most often used when consumers are companies);
3) by geographic scope (relative to the total territory).
When setting goals, market share is usually expressed as a percentage of sales. For example, Pepsi aims to be the largest soft drink manufacturer and reach 25% of the market, i.e. to ensure that the amount of products sold by this company would be 25% of the total products of this industry.
Improving the qualifications of employees and relations with the team. Employees in any job always appreciate the ample opportunities for professional growth provided to them. Companies with a flexible management system pay special attention to this issue when setting goals. Ultimately, the company receives enormous returns (increased productivity, reduced staff turnover) from any activities that allow employees to realize their creative potential and make a career.
Good relationships with the team on the part of management can be maintained by paying attention to the interests of workers in both long-term and short-term plans. Such actions strengthen employees' confidence in the manager's interest in supporting their well-being. Goals of this kind may include the adoption of programs to strengthen workplace safety, various types of incentives for fulfilling established standards or achieving a set goal, involving employees in the management process, etc.
Technological activities. The manager must almost constantly decide whether it is worth carrying out technical re-equipment in a given month (year) or whether production will be effective on the existing technological base.
Some companies, when setting goals, pay great attention to the technical perfection of their equipment. Others deliberately choose a position of moderate improvement of technology, preferring drastic reconstruction only in a situation where the market and competition require it. Both of these approaches can be equally successful. In a specific situation, everything will depend on the skillful construction of short-term goals related to technological research and equipment upgrading.
Responsibility to society. Every successful company, at a certain stage of its development, becomes a kind of social institution that assumes certain responsibilities to consumers and society as a whole. And in such a company, the manager, when setting goals, will take into account all the local, national and international features of the environment. Examples include participation in charitable and educational programs, special work with members of social minorities, public services, political activities and contributions to general economic development.
When a manager decides which areas the goals should cover, he should not limit himself to one area, but direct them to several at once, as suggested in the previous section. Regardless of the specific area for which a manager sets a goal, the following tips will be very useful.
1. Convince that goals affect the top of the organization. If senior management does not have clear goals, lower levels of the organization become directionless, and people at those levels may assume that goal setting itself is not important.
2. Provide a clear statement of the organization's mission and ensure that all members of the organization are familiar with it. Subordinates often have little understanding of it, and this leads to the fact that the mission, which gives meaning and meaning to the work, becomes secondary. Managers must systematically remind people of the organization's key goals by asking, “Why are we working? What is the purpose of this organization? What does she focus her attention on?
3. Make sure that every person, work group or unit in the organization has at least one clear, understandable, regularly monitored goal.
4. Don't assign more than 6-9 goals to anyone at once. Overloading subordinates with too many goals scatters their efforts and undermines their effectiveness.
An effective approach to working with goals is that you should have long-term, medium-term and short-term goals. An effective way to achieve important goals is to break large goals into smaller ones.
At the same time, short-term and smaller goals support medium-term and long-term goals, that is, they contribute to their achievement.
The best way to achieve what you want is to combine short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals.
The optimal strategy might be:
1. Set long-term goals first
What do you want to achieve over the next few years? These are big goals that take time to achieve. This could be buying a home, completing your studies, or changing your field of activity. Your long-term goals are the basis for setting other shorter-term goals. This is like a foundation in the overall structure of your goals.
Although, perhaps, it would be more correct to call the goals not long-term, but rather large ones. It's just that the larger the goal, the longer it usually takes to achieve it. Therefore, a generally accepted terminology for dividing goals by deadlines has emerged. Although someone can make big changes in their life in a short period of time, simply by deciding to take a certain step. Nevertheless, we will use the established terminology for determining the size of goals by the time frame for achievement, but we will understand that, first of all, the size of a goal is determined by its importance for a person, and not by the period within which it can be achieved.
Typically, long-term goals have deadlines for achievement within a few years. Everything here is individual. For example, buying a home in 5 years or graduating from university in 7 years (if you haven’t entered it yet). Although, of course, long-term goals can extend significantly beyond 5 or even 10 years.
2. Next, define your mid-term goals.
These are large blocks in the structure of your goals. In doing so, they support your long-term goals and guide or contribute to your achievement.
If your long-term goal is to change your career, you may need to get a new education or save some money to invest in a business. This could be the medium-term goals.
Medium-term goals should also have deadlines for achievement. Of course, they must be related to time frames defined for long-term goals.
3. Finally, focus on your short-term goals.
These are goals that you are more likely to achieve in a short time. Such goals are set for a month or a quarter. Again, this is all individual for you. For example, if you want to change your field of activity, you need to at least determine your interests and start studying these issues. And don't forget that these goals should lead you to achieve longer-term goals.
Short-term goals should be specific and definitely achievable. These are small but clear steps towards the desired result.
In this article we will look at the main types of goals and also find out what are the goals
I conduct some kind of research almost every day, interviewing people in public places or on social networks. And you know, today I noticed a strange thing:
- 9 out of 10 people strongly believe that achieving success is achieved through goals;
- 8 out of 10 people have tried setting goals for themselves;
- 1 out of 10 people achieved their goal;
- None of the participants knew what types of goals existed;
And this is very sad, my friends. After all, goal setting, like any other discipline, has its own foundations and its own theory, which significantly facilitates the task in practice.
Let's take bodybuilding as an example:
Before an athlete begins to develop muscles, he needs to create a training program, select exercises and figure out how to do them correctly. All exercises are divided into groups for each muscle. However, there are exercises that work several muscles at once. It is possible to achieve significant results only when all groups of exercises are done together and constantly. Do you agree that hardly anyone will appreciate a bodybuilder whose only biceps and calves are pumped up?
Now let’s see how this relates to goal setting:
Before achieving success in life, you need to decide on your life goal, create small subgoals and figure out exactly how to implement them. Moreover, all goals are divided into several types, each of which improves one or another area of life. However, there are goals that improve several areas at once. However, it is possible to achieve a life goal only when all areas are developed as fully as possible. Do you agree that hardly anyone will appreciate a person who has good health, but no money or family?
Much of what is described above will be discussed in subsequent articles, so do not forget to subscribe to updates. You can do this either by filling out the form at the end of the post. Today we will consider only types of goals. For example, I already wrote about that.
So, what are the goals? I have identified several types of goals:
- Long-term goals;
- Short term goals;
- Advanced goals;
- Lightweight targets;
- Deliberately impossible goals;
- Goals that do not depend on us;
Now let's take a closer look at each variety.
Long term goals
Goals that require a large amount of time to complete. As a rule, goals are considered long-term if their implementation period exceeds 6 months. Long-term goals are mainly aimed at achieving a significant result. This type of goal requires particularly careful thought, since planning on a long-term basis is quite difficult. In addition, the executor of the goal requires great willpower, since the result does not appear late. An ideal option for those who want a lot and know how to wait.
Short term goals
Short-term goals are goals that take less than 6 months to complete. They are usually used to break a close-up into smaller components. These goals allow you to see results in a short period of time, increasing the motivation of the performer. This type of goal is used most often, as it does not require much effort. I myself prefer this type of goals when solving any problems.
Advanced Goals
This type of goal is most often set by people who like to overcome any obstacles or want to achieve significant results in a short period of time. The performer is required to have the maximum of his spiritual and physical resources. However, the result is worth it. My favorite type of goals.
Light targets
Lightweight goals are used either by lazy people or by people who do not have time to pursue this goal. Easy goals are not important. Typically, these are tasks that can improve something secondary. However, I also often use this variety.
Obviously impossible goals
Why go far - “I’ll get a star from the sky.” This is purely physically impossible, since the star is located many millions of light years away, weighs incredibly much and has its own orbit. However, in pursuit of this goal, a person can significantly improve one of his areas. For example, become an astronaut.
Goals that are beyond our control
For example: coach and student. The coach’s goal is to ensure that the student takes first place at the All-Russian Championship. However, no matter how hard the coach tries, the decisive role will still depend on the student.
Each type of goal requires a special approach and method of implementation. That is why it is very important at first to decide exactly what goal you have set for yourself. In the future, this will make the task much easier, since you will know approximately what methods to perform it. We will talk about this in the following articles.
Of course, you don’t have to bother with this, but do you remember how many people, according to statistics, fulfill their goals?
I hope you found out what are the goals And types of goals
If a traveler, climbing a mountain, is too busy with every step and forgets to check the guiding star, he risks losing it and going astray. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).
In this series of articles, I want to tell you how to set goals correctly and achieve them: how famous and successful people do it, like I do.
Why is this question so important?
Everyone knows that running in the morning is good for your health, but only a few do it.
Everyone knows that you need to eat right. After all, poor nutrition is no less harmful than smoking or drinking alcohol. But “until it hits”, most people don’t think about it.
The same situation applies to achieving goals.
We all know that we need to set goals for ourselves, achieve something, improve mentally and physically.
But, honestly, most of us leave our goals “to chance,” thereby completely abdicating all responsibility for achieving it.
It turned out - fortune! It didn’t work out - no luck!
The main reasons why people don't achieve their goals are:
- lack of priorities in our lives. We don’t know what is more important to us: career or family, health or leisure, etc.
- There is only enough time for work routine and household chores at home. The goals we want to achieve are pushed back indefinitely on the time scale.
- the existence of confusion between dreams, ideas, projects and goals. We don't have a clear division of "what is what", so most goals are simply lost
- our goals do not have clear criteria. It seems that there are goals, but our brain (and the forces helping us from above) cannot understand how we will know that we have achieved them
- the realism of our goals does not correspond to reality. A lot of people who have worked their whole lives in hired jobs and have not earned a penny on their own write themselves the goal “Create a cool business and earn $1,000,000.” Why not? Really! In such cases I always ask: “Why not a billion? Is a million enough? Completely inconsistent with reality!
What does proper goal setting mean?
Most of the troubles all over the world occur because people do not clearly understand their goals (I. Goethe)
To set goals correctly and achieve them, you don’t need to invent any bicycles.
Everything has already been invented before us!
The most effective way to work with goals is to divide them into long-term, medium-term and short-term goals.
How to set goals correctly - Goal Pyramid Long term goals
These are vital goals for the next 10 and 3-5 years. And they need to be placed in exactly that order.
When setting goals for 10 years, you can give complete freedom to your imagination and dreams, to simulate any situation as we want to be.
Based on these images, we create long-term goals for ourselves for 3-5 years, which will be either one third or half of the goals for 10 years.
Examples of long-term goals:
- Become the No. 1 specialist in your industry
- Build your own house
- Go on a trip around the world in a hot air balloon
Medium-term goals
These are the goals for the coming year. And they should significantly advance us towards our long-term goals for 3-5 years.
Examples of medium-term goals:
- Organize all your affairs and tasks, learn effective planning
- Buy a plot of land of 10 acres to build your own house
- Learn to fly in a hot air balloon
Short term goals
These are goals for the next 1-3 months. They are formed on the basis of medium-term goals for the coming year.
Examples of short-term goals:
- Take an individual course on organizing things, tasks, projects, goals using the MyLifeOrganized task planner
- Consult a lawyer and prepare a list of the complete package of documents for purchasing land
- Pass a medical examination and go up in a hot air balloon for the first time with an instructor at the Balloon Festival (if there is one, of course)
This results in a chain of goals
We break big goals into small ones in such a way that each short-term goal should move us towards our long-term goals. In other words, to contribute to their achievement.
Well, the definition of vital long-term goals follows from the purpose of each of us on this earth:
- Why are we here?
- What should they leave behind for posterity?
- etc.
This is something similar to being guided by the polar star, which leads us in the right direction.