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Are you feeling overwhelmed by all of the goals your team wants to achieve? Are you struggling to get everything done?
If so, don’t worry – you’re not alone. A lot of teams feel this way. In fact, many give up on their goals because they feel like they feel too far out of reach, they’re not properly equipped, or they don’t have the people, time, or energy. But that doesn’t have to be the case.
In this post, we will discuss some quick tips on setting and achieving goals – even if they seem too crazy to achieve!
Planning the goal
Get clear on what actually needs to be done
When people set goals, they frequently pick what’s top of mind.
Rather than fall into this recency bias, spend some time creating a list of things you want to achieve. Is there one thing on that list that if achieved, would make the rest of those things easier? What can you do to achieve that one thing?
Once you’ve figured out which goal will make everything easier, get really clear on what it’d mean to achieve it. What would success look like? Feel like? What does the journey look like versus just the end goal? How will you celebrate it once you’ve reached it? Crystallize it in your minds eye.
Try 90-day timelines
Have you ever set a goal for yourself that’s a year out, then went off track in just a few weeks? Yeah, us too.
Setting goals that are too far away can make envisioning achieving them difficult. This is where 90-day goals come in. 90 days is enough time to see progress yet still enough that if you end with little to show for it, you didn’t waste much time.
To try out 90-day goals, take your bigger goal or long-term vision and break it down into more manageable chunks. Then, create a timeline for what you want to achieve in the next 90 days.
Make it measurable
If you’ve worked in a corporate environment, you’ve probably had the concept of “SMART” goals beat into you. Rather than sound like a corporate presentation given by HR during performance review season, we’ll gently remind you that the ideas behind SMART are sound – especially the “make it measurable” part.
Without a way to track your progress, it’s easy to be unsure when you achieve it or not. So set a target date & objective criteria.
Better yet, take it a step further and set some stoplight metrics. Outline what values will show you you’re doing well, which ones make you go “hey, maybe we need to work a little harder at this” and what range the “check engine” light should come on.
But make it an achievable measure
If you set your marker for success so high that it’s out of reach, it’s easy to become discouraged. Set something that is challenging, but not overly so. Something you actually have the resources to accomplish.
Setting ambitious goals is great, but when you fail to achieve them time after time, it can be a hit to your self-esteem and confidence – leading to a downward cycle of de-motivation.
So if you’re on a streak of not achieving goals, try setting some you can achieve. Then make them progressively more challenging as you hit more and more of them.
Execute on the goal
Stop trying to change your goal mid-course
Speaking of 90-day goals, when you set one, you need to stick to it.
All too often, people will set a goal and then change their minds halfway through because they’re not seeing results. Then they’re surprised when they don’t achieve anything. Hmmm.
So stick with it. It’s just 90 days. You can do it.
Keep people accountable
Some people can set their goals and achieve them without anyone telling them to. But not everyone has this great internal sense of accountability.
Some people have an external sense of accountability and need someone around who they feel expects them to achieve to their goals. These could be team members, a manager, a mastermind group member, or a friend.
If someone on your team (or you yourself) needs this level of accountability, make sure you identify them, who they should be accountable to, and get them the extra push they may need to make progress.
After the goal period is up
Dig into outliers
If you’re not hitting your goals at all or you’re blowing them out of the water, then it may be worth investigating why.
If you blew it out of the water, maybe fast forward the creation of your next goal or up the ante on your current goal. Make it a bit more challenging.
If you fell short, maybe there are some process improvements you can make. Are there things you can delegate or automate? Did you base your goal on something completely out of your control? Do some reflection and come back with an even better goal.
Track progress towards your vision
When a goal is complete or the time is up, circle back to your vision and review how this goal helped you move towards your vision.
After all, most people overestimate what they can do in a week but underestimate what they can do in 1, 5, 10, or 20 years.
Go forth and achieve your goals!
Achieving goals can be a difficult task, but it’s not impossible. By following some simple steps and tips, you can set yourself up for success and achieve your goals in record time. We hope that this guide has helped to provide you with some useful information on how to better achieve your goals. Now get out there and put in the work!