How to Set & Achieve Your Goals this Year

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Seeing as it’s January and the start of the new year. I thought it would be appropriate to do an episode on goal setting. Now, I know that in my last episode I talked about how New Year’s resolutions don’t always work for me and that I found the exercise of choosing a word much more useful. However, that doesn’t mean that I don’t set goals for myself. In my experience, goals and New Year’s resolutions are two different things. The typical New Year’s resolutions go like “I want to lose weight” or “I want to read my Bible more” or “I want to be more intentional with my life.” And as great at those desires are, those statements alone are not going to move the needle. As you’ll see in this episode, goals (at least good ones) have some very specific qualities to them and if done right, goal setting can be a great way to make extraordinary changes in your life.

So, let’s talk about how to set an effective goal. For those of you who are new to the show, I am a business management professor and the primary course that I teach is focused on leadership and organizational behavior. In this course, we discuss goal-setting theory when we are learning about employee motivation and how to cultivate it. Much of the research on goal-setting theory suggests that goals need to be both specific and difficult if they are going to be motivating. Goals result in even better results when individuals receive feedback on their progress towards their goals along the way and when they are fully committed to achieving that goal.

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So how do we set these specific and difficult goals, get feedback, and ensure our commitment?

I’m so glad that you asked!

Let’s start by discussing one of the most popular goal-setting approaches first: setting SMART goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, and time-specific.

Let’s break that down a bit more…

1.       Specific

First, goals need to be specific. When we are specific about the goals that we want to achieve, we gain a lot of clarity around 1) what we actually want to achieve and 2) what we need to do to achieve it. Going back to my New Year’s resolution example, “I want to lose weight” is not a very specific goal. A more specific goal would be “I want to lose 15 pounds.” The more specific we are in stating our goals, the more likely we are to achieve them because we know what we’re aiming for; we can see the finish line.

 2.       Measurable

Second, goals need to be measurable. When goals are measurable, we can monitor our progress towards achieving them. For example, maybe your goal is to “get healthier.” First, that’s not a very specific goal because it’s not clear what that exactly means… it could relate to your diet, your exercise, your mental health, physical health, etc. Further, we have no way to know when you achieve that goal of “being healthier” because there’s no way to measure it. A better goal would be something like my previous example of “I want to lose 15 pounds” or “I want to be able to run a 5k.” By making it measurable, we can see the progress that we are making towards that goal. This provides that much-needed feedback and allows us to course correct our behaviors if we are not making progress like we want to.

 3.       Achievable

Next, goals need to be achievable. Now, listen closely… when I say achievable I do not mean easy. Remember, I already said that the best goals are difficult goals. However, goal-setting is more effective when we set achievable goals. Think about it… would you be more motivated by a goal that you know is possible, but very challenging, or by a goal that you know is absolutely impossible? When we see something as being utterly impossible, we aren’t motivated to even try. So instead of setting a goal so ridiculously high that you can’t possibly believe you’ll meet it, try setting one that feels challenging but also realistically doable.

  4.       Results-Based

Goals should also be results-based. Goals are not activities. Instead, they are the outcome or reward that we are working towards.

 5.       Time-Specific

Finally, goals should be time-specific meaning that there is a deadline. Stating “I want to lose 15 pounds” is not enough. Without the deadline, there is no urgency and you’re likely to procrastinate taking any action towards achieving your goal. But when you state “I want to lose 15 pounds in the next 6 months” it gives you a reason to start moving.

So that is SMART goal setting in a nutshell. In order to get the best results from setting a goal it needs to be specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, and time-specific. In this last part of the episode, I wanted to chat about some of my favorite goal-setting tips. There is so much great information out there on goal setting. Some of these may resonate with you and some of them might not. But I wanted to share because I’ve already seen it start showing up on my social media; people are feeling guilty that they haven’t set some big, amazing goals for the year or, on the other extreme, they are already feeling burnt out before they even gained traction towards achieving their goals.

Bonus tips:

SMART-ER Goals

In his book, Your Best Year Ever, Michael Hyatt discusses his approach to goal setting which involves setting SMARTER goals. The big difference here are those last two letters, E and R. Those stand for Exciting and Relevant. If you do a brain dump of all the things you’d like to achieve, chances are that some of those are simply “should” goals. You feel like you “should” lose weight or that you “should” want to work towards that promotion at work, but it doesn’t really light you up. However, I mentioned earlier that goal setting works best when we are fully committed to our goals. It’s hard to commit to a goal that doesn’t excite us. Take this into consideration when choosing what to work towards this year. As for relevant, Hyatt simply encourages goal setters to consider the season of life that they are in. Do you have enough resources available to pursue that goal? Also, how well does that goal align with your personal values? In other words, is this goal relevant to your current life circumstances?

Baby Steps

Another aspect of goal setting that I wanted to discuss is breaking it down into baby steps. When we’re setting goals, especially big goals that might take a year or more to achieve, it’s so easy to get overwhelmed by them. Our brain might see the statement “I want to save $6,000 this year” and start to freak out. This is why it is so necessary to take a step back and reframe the goal in a way that seems much more achievable (because remember, SMART goals are difficult but achievable). Instead of saying “$6,000 in a year”, try “$500 in a month” or “$17 in a day.” All of sudden, this goal seems a lot more realistic.

Compound Effect

Embracing the compound effect is a strategy to reach our goals with seemingly meaningless, small actions. It essentially states that:

SMALL CHOICES + CONSISTENCY + TIME = BIG RESULTS

The reason I love thinking about the compound effect is because again, it helps make those big goals you have for your life so much more achievable. To continue the example of saving $6,000 a year… skipping out on your morning Starbucks coffee might not seem like a big deal; it’s only $5. But, if you consistently skip that coffee day after day, you’ll have saved $1825 in a year. That puts you almost 1/3 of the way to your goal and you didn’t really have to do anything big or drastic. The same goes for exercise or weight loss. If you move your body for 30 minutes one day, you’re not going to see a huge improvement that day. But if you consistently move 30 minutes per day for a year, you will see a big transformation! Embracing the compound effect as you work towards your goals this year will make it feel so much more effortless.  

Make it fun!

Finally, as you work towards your goals make sure you have fun with it! In today’s world, we could all use more fun in our lives. You will be so much more likely to stick to a goal if you actually enjoy the actions it takes to achieve it. Trying to lose weight? Choose an exercise that you enjoy doing. Don’t just start a HIIT workout because everyone else is doing it. Instead, maybe you prefer pilates, yoga, or a zoomba class. Want to eat healthy? Make it fun by trying new recipes or subscribing to a meal-kit delivery service like Hello Fresh or Green Chef. Want to save money? Come up with creative, inexpensive activities to do instead of going out. Things like board games with friends, classic movie nights, or hikes through a local park.

I pray that this episode is encouraging as you set your goals for the new year. As an action step this week, I encourage you to revisit any goals you’ve already set and run them through the SMART (ER) test. Are they specific? Measurable? Achievable? Results-Based? Time-Specific? What about Exciting? Relevant? From there, break them down into baby-steps and think about ways that you can take advantage of the compound effect. Lastly, don’t forget to make it fun!

I’d love to hear what goals you are working towards this year. Please don’t be a stranger! Send me a message over on Instagram and let me know. We can encourage one another as we strive for amazing things in 2022.

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