What is goal setting?
Goal setting is the process of planning and organizing your time, resources, and abilities to accomplish prioritized objectives.
Effectively setting goals is vital to increasing performance and enabling success in your endeavors.
To accomplish your goals, you need to define your desired end state or outcome goal. Additionally, you need to identify the process of achieving this outcome consisting of a series of smaller goals that when accomplished lead to your overall end state. These are called process goals.
Desired Outcome
Your desired end state needs to be carefully thought out and planned to ensure your success. This goal should be…
Specific. Be as precise as possible and think through as many details as you can. Clearly define and outline your objective with a precision-like focus. Becoming stronger is not a specific goal. Increasing your max rep set of Pull-ups by 50% or nailing the One-Arm Push-up is.
Measurable. You have to measure progress regularly. You need to clearly define and identify progress on your journey to accomplishing your goal. This will help you stay on track!
Attainable. Is your goal realistic or attainable? This is important! An important part of determining whether or not your desired end state is achievable is through identifying the process of reaching your desired end state.
Relevant. Does this goal make sense? Can you justify it? Is it important to you? This is critical to address for maintaining consistency. You are not going to stick to a goal that you are not committed to.
Timely. You must clearly define a realistic timeline for achieving your goal. A solid tip is to look at your desired end state and then backward plan from your objective back to where you are in the present.
Process
After you have dialed in your outcome goal, the next step in setting yourself up to achieve this desired end state is through a detailed and well-thought-out process.
This is the step-by-step actionable plan that enables you to achieve your chosen objective. The more thought and energy spent on your attention to the details, the higher your likelihood of success.
Let's discuss the process of achieving your outcome goal...
Plan Your Course of Action
The first step in this process is to leverage all available resources. These resources may take the form of important relationships, monies or valuables, equipment items, time, important partnerships, or any other asset that may have a positive impact in accomplishing the objective.
Once we thoroughly determine all available tools and assets, we can effectively build a methodical plan of attack moving forward. Possessing a solid understanding of what we have available and their capabilities allows us to be as efficient as possible in accomplishing our chosen endeavor.
As an example, a solid tactical leader draws upon the experience and expertise of every member of the team during the operational planning process. Instead of planning out every detail of the scheme of maneuvering themselves, they include each member of the team.
Inclusive leadership creates buy-in, ensures that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities, creates a “sanity check” for the overall scheme of maneuver, and ultimately reduces the leader's burden. If the plan makes sense to everyone involved and is easy to understand, it’s probably a solid one to execute under stress.
Identify exactly how you plan to accomplish your desired end-state by breaking this goal into realistic increments or manageable performance/process goals.
If you cannot visualize what accomplishing your outcome goal should look like, you need to do your homework and educate yourself more on this process.
This may mean diving into research projects, investing in some coaching, or seeking out mentorship and guidance from those who are/were successful in what you hope to accomplish.
The purpose of establishing these process goals is to help keep you on the correct path needed to accomplish your desired end state in the most efficient way possible.
Figure out what the process is going to look like each month, each week, and then finally distill this endeavor of accomplishing your outcome goal down to a realistic path of what this process will look like each day.
In short, you need to set monthly, weekly, and daily goals for yourself to be the most effective.
Establish A Realistic Timeline
The only way to ensure you have a realistic timeframe for accomplishing your objective is by planning backward from your end state to the present moment while accounting for each detail in the process. Give yourself a little wiggle room to adjust as no plan survives first contact with the enemy or circumstance.
Plan For Contingencies
The last step in your planning process is to Identify any known challenges, individual weaknesses, potential pitfalls, or roadblocks on the way to success. Once these are identified, create a detailed plan of attack on how to negotiate these points of friction. You want to stack the deck in your favor!
Expectation Management
You have to manage your expectations before beginning your journey. Any difficult challenge is going to come with its fair share of adversity and setbacks. Deal with them and keep moving forward.
You need to understand this before you begin your endeavor otherwise you are setting yourself up to fail (revisit Commitment).
Accountability
Share your goal with others for accountability purposes and measure and celebrate all success. Celebrate both big and small accomplishments and don’t dwell on the setbacks or failures along the way. These must happen to ensure learning and growth are taking place.
Be Flexible
Understand that we oftentimes learn the most from our failures and shortcomings. Instead of becoming discouraged, reflect, course correct, and then get after it again. Do not give up!
Think of these failures and setbacks as learning opportunities. If you learn from your mistakes, you will be more prepared to handle a similar situation in the future.
Once you have achieved your goal, keep the momentum by setting a new goal and continue this process of being successful.
Establish your next goal through the following process outlined below...
(1) Clearly define your Outcome Goal
Identify your outcome goal or desired end state and then the challenges associated with accomplishing this goal. Once these challenges have been clearly identified, create a plan of action to mitigate these known points of friction in order to be successful in accomplishing this goal.
Answer the following questions:
A. What is your desired goal or end state (think big as this goal should make you nervous)?
B. What is a feasible timeline for reaching this end state?
C. What challenges currently exist that could prevent you from accomplishing this goal?
(2) Identify your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to your goal
Answer the following questions:
A. What are your strengths going into this process of achieving your goal?
B. What tools do you have available to use at your disposal?
C. Where are you vulnerable?
D. What are your known weaknesses going into this process?
E. What must be done to strengthen these weaknesses?
Example: Your fitness-related goal is to take 30 seconds off of your 2-mile Run time and improve your Performance Baseline by 2 points over the next 8 weeks. Your nutrition is on point but you lack consistency in your training. You have identified that waking up early in the morning is difficult for you but this is the only way you can train consistently to accomplish your performance goal. You now must figure out how to make this a manageable practice if being successful in this endeavor is important to you.
Maybe you need to go to bed earlier each night? Maybe set your alarm 30 minutes early on mornings when you are scheduled to train? Maybe have everything laid out and staged the night before (clothes, shoes, training gear, coffee or sports drink made and ready to go, etc.) so that when you wake up in the morning you are ready to get going without much thought. You get the idea. This is just one example and if you dig deep enough, you can identify any weaknesses and points of friction.
(3) Identify your Process Goals
Decide what each day is going to look like in the process of accomplishing your goal. Break your outcome goal down into smaller, more realistic goals that when achieved, eventually lead up to the overall goal or desired end state. Small goals achieved over time equal big goals! These process goals are necessary for more precise course corrections. The more process goals you have planned for in your journey toward the overall end state, the more accurate, efficient, and successful you will be.
Answer the following questions:
A. What are your process goals?
B. What are each month, week, and day going to look like in your pursuit of accomplishing your outcome goal?
(4) Contingency plan through every phase of accomplishing your outcome goal
Expect things not to go your way from time to time and be prepared to flex. Adjust and overcome these challenges by adapting to the situation, learning from your mistakes, and then moving forward with a new corrected course of action. Prepare for success but be mentally prepared for setbacks and failures.
Answer the following questions:
A. What are the potential setbacks most likely to occur during the process of achieving your goal or desired end state?
B. What is your plan for successfully negotiating these roadblocks? What are your contingency plans?
(5) Plan out your timeline
Backward plan from your outcome goal or desired end state to where you are currently keeping your process goals in mind. The more realistic and accurate your outcome and process goals are, the more efficient and successful you will be at accomplishing them. This process is essential to accurately planning a realistic timeline. Cross-reference this timeline with part 1.
Lastly, assess your goals, your timeline, and your action plan and make adjustments as necessary. Is your plan of action for accomplishing your goal realistic and achievable? Where might you have the greatest challenge in executing your plan of action?
Think through it step by step from top to bottom or beginning to end. What is this process going to look like at ground level? Is the process good to go, or have you identified any other issues that need to be addressed? If there are no glaring issues, you are ready to get started.
Revisit your motivation/commitment and rethink this process of accomplishing your outcome goal each day as you crush your process goals. Push through adversity while keeping the big picture in mind. The goal-setting process isn't perfect and there will be variables that you cannot account for during your planning phase. Know this and be ready and willing to adjust as necessary! This is why patience and flexibility are so important my friend.
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