Goal Setting & How to Achieve Them

Goal setting is an essential aspect of personal and professional development. It allows individuals to identify what they want to achieve and create a plan to make it happen.

Setting goals can help individuals focus their efforts, measure progress, and stay motivated throughout the pursuit of their objectives. However, setting goals is only the first step. To achieve them, it is important to clearly understand what you want to accomplish, set specific and realistic targets, and develop a plan of action to work towards them. Additionally, it’s important to stay motivated, flexible, and accountable.

In this article, I will discuss the importance of goal setting and provide practical tips on setting and achieving your goals.

What is a short-term goal?

A short-term goal is an achievement that you want to reach within the timeframe of a year. These goals can be items on your to-do list or goals that you want to achieve within the new year. A new year’s resolution is a good example of a goal (that we often forget when February rolls around).

Short-term goals should align with your long-term goals and life plan. These goals break up larger, more complex long-term goals into bite-size chunks. This makes complex long-term goals more achievable by defining specific milestones that will allow you to achieve greater success over the long term.   

If you align your short-term goals with your long-term goals, you can ensure that you remain on the right path to what you want. If your short-term goals do not align with your long-term goals, you may decide whether it is worth your time. You can pivot and find alignment if you review them and identify these issues.

Setting weekly, monthly, and annual goals are important to get the implementation in place. Long-term goals without the “how we will get there” short-term goals provide no substance. Without focusing on what you are doing right now – your long-term goals are no more than a dream.

What is a medium-term goal?

We want to achieve medium-term goals within 1 to 3 years. Like short-term goals, these should align with your long-term goals. These activities focus on something other than weeks or months but focus on goals we want to achieve over several years.

Medium-term goals can be focused on the twelve different areas of life and how we can prioritise those areas of life that matter to us. This includes the four main growth categories: health, people, and our environment.

What is a long-term goal?

Long-term goals are set over many years of implementation through short- and medium-term goals. These goals are complex in nature. They may look, but once these goals are unpacked, they require dedication and focus over many years to achieve.

Some long-term goals may be set, never to be achieved. These goals go beyond our lifetimes, where we can support an effort that we cannot solve in our lifetime. These goals are usually faced on a global level and are something we can strive towards, but they always seem out of reach. This allows us to never suffer from the “gold medal effect,” where you achieve everything you ever wanted and become lost.

Long-term goals can be our “life goals” spanning our entire life. Another word for life goals is purpose. What gives us purpose in life? What provides us with a state of flow? What do we love to do in our spare time that provides us with joy? These goals are how we envision our life – short- and medium-term goals are a method to achieve this life vision.

Long-term goals should be revisited periodically (once a year or every several years) as we change as people. What you want at twenty years old will most likely be different when you are forty. 

The journey to these long-term goals is the most important part. Finding content and living in the present. Knowing that we are working towards a better life, where we have a greater responsibility to ourselves, others, and the wider community.

Joy comes from the journey, not the destination. We have a better chance of living in the here and now (our life) when we stop trying to get somewhere else. Focus on the here and now; the long-term goals may or may not come – the only thing that matters is what you do today.

Find joy in the journey. The summit can be a lonely place.

How to set goals the right way?

In the previous article, I spoke about SMART goals and how they put the meat on the bones of generic goals. SMART goals make your targets specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. There are limitations to this method, however:

• Unobtainable Goals: arguably, some goals we do not want to achieve ensure we have a sustained purpose.
•  Avoiding setting challenging goals: by setting achievable goals, we can often air on the side of caution with goal setting. This means that we do not challenge ourselves.
• Lead to Disappointment – with specific goals, we cannot hide behind ambiguity. This means that it is plain to see whether we achieved the goal or not. For some, this may lead to disappointment instead of driving them through failure.
• Time-bound – life throws us curve balls, and SMART goals don’t concern these events. The stake is in the ground and does not care for other obligations. This should always be considered before setting the deadline by adding contingency.

There are other methods to achieve SMART goals that I will review in another article. For this article, I will use SMART goals to set short- and medium-term goals. I found it difficult to relate the SMART method to long-term goals. These are often aspirations of a future, the final you, so to speak. Not only is it hard to determine when these goals will occur, but it is also hard to pinpoint these goals down. Our passions change throughout our lives, and a goal such as “have a large loving family” is hard to relate to the SMART framework.

Why should we set ourselves goals?

There are many reasons to set different goals over the short, medium, and long term. I have listed the benefits of setting all three goals below:

Short-Term Goal Benefits

• Reduce the level of procrastination.
• Boost Motivation for Long-Term Goals
• Provides Quick Feedback
• Progress toward medium-term goals

Medium-Term Goal Benefits

• Reflect on aspects of our life that are important.
• Realign our short-term goals.
• Allows us to reflect on our journey.  
• Progress towards long-term goals.

Long-Term Goal Benefits

• Envision our Future.
• Provide us with a clear path in life.
• Focus on what is important in the now.
• Question what we want out of life.

How to achieve our goals?

We achieve our goals by putting in the work now. We attempt to move the distractions and focus on what we deem important in life. We can trust in the roadmap by setting a clear plan for each of our short-term goals.

By achieving short-term goals, we achieve our medium-term goals. By accomplishing our medium-term goals, we move closer to our long-term goals. Whether these long-term goals are achievable or not is another question. Yet if we see these unobtainable long-term goals as a continuum, we can move closer to our envisioned life.

To do this effectively, the method I will use is:

1. Review your 12 aspects of life: using my previous article, work out where your time is currently spent. This will draw attention to what areas of your life you are neglecting and whether you are focused on the things that are important to you. This is different for everyone.

2. Determine long-term goals: Using your 12 aspects of life analysis, determine what areas of life you want to dedicate your life to. What areas of your life need to be improved, and what areas of your life bring you joy now? Envision your perfect life – what is the end goal here, and why are these goals important to you? These are the hardest goals to set and will change as you grow as a person. What is your purpose? Not an easy question. Avoid using SMART goals if this pigeonholes your creativity and “blue-sky thinking.”

3. Determine medium-term goals based on the long-term vision: Now that the long-term is taken care of, you can determine goals over the next 3 years that you want to achieve to further you along the continuum to these life goals. If these goals do not align with your long-term goals, you may need to remove them from your list or, if important, re-evaluate them. 

4. List the short-term goals that will allow you to achieve the medium-term goals: Now break the medium-term goals into annual, monthly, and weekly goals. This acts as the drumbeat, the plan, and the hard work that you put in now to achieve what you want out of life.  

5. Break the short-term goals into daily tasks: Now, take the short-term goals and add them to your calendar. Break these short-term goals into daily tasks. What do you need to do today to achieve what you want tomorrow? The only moment that matters is now. Not then, not later, now. Create a plan to achieve each short-term goal and schedule these activities into your calendar.  

6. Get to work.

Biting off more than you can chew

The first time I did this exercise, I found myself overwhelmed with the number of goals one can pursue. I found myself listing everything that I want out of life. The issue…

So many items were on the list that the vision became overwhelming. How could I possibly do all these things in one lifetime?

At this stage, I decided to reduce the number of goals to one. One goal for each of the aspects of life. These goals were included in the short-term list with their corresponding medium- and long-term goals.

My Current Short-Term Goals

The below section will be updated periodically after each goal has been achieved. The below is what I am currently working towards and will (hopefully) expand as I achieve the goals. Feel free to use the below for inspiration.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, SMART goal setting is a powerful tool that can help individuals achieve their life goals by providing a clear and measurable path toward success. By setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals, individuals can focus their efforts and track their progress, making it more likely that they will achieve their desired outcome. Additionally, by breaking down larger goals into smaller, manageable tasks, individuals can increase their chances of success by taking small, consistent steps toward their ultimate goal. Ultimately, the key to achieving your life goals is to be persistent, stay motivated, and be willing to make necessary adjustments along the way.

Although I reduced the number of short-term goals to a select few – I kept the long-term vision broad enough to capture my imagination. By doing this, I was not restricting my life goals and ensuring that the work was being done in the short term.

Too many goals in the short-term lead to a dilution of your efforts. Once each goal is completed, a new goal will take its place. This ensures that progress is made and reduces the amount of indecision created by the overwhelm of too many goals.  

You may find that passion by taking an active role in your life. Finding your passion through trying new things. You may only discover your passion if you get out there and try things. Goals challenge us to do more; by doing more, we are more likely to find what and who we love.

Keep moving forward.