How To Set Effective Goals That Will Mold Your Future

The Psychological Framework of Goal Setting Matters To Your Success.

Setting goals is very easy to do and will always differ in experience from person to person, but setting Effective Goals is something completely unique in itself. It may be self-evident that unrealistic goals are ineffective. We set ourselves up for failure when we set goals that are unattainable to our mindset. This means, if you don't truly believe in the goal that you set the mind refuses to believe in your ability to achieve it. If in the deepest part of your mind a goal is unattainable then the mind must create it as reality. For a week or two the goals attainability is at a high level, but this is not sustainable over the long-term.

The sustainability of the goal, what you believe is achievable, and the timing, how long it takes to achieve said goal, matters for the desired outcome. For instance, if we were to set a goal for saving a certain amount of money by the time we retire; we would understand this is a long-term goal. Notice, I did not say you are saving money until the age of 65, which is around the age of retirement for most. Those two examples are completely different goals in your mind. The way your mind responds to different goal setting scenarios is unique to your family and social upbringing. Let's look at goal setting deeper and in more detail.

When you incorporate an age or any kind of time limit on goal setting, it gives you a way out. If you are 30 years old and start a savings account for when you're 65, at 40 you could decide to purchase a big ticket item. You would be able to justify through the time remaining (25 years) that there is plenty of time to reach the goal. This is not effective goal setting and will cause the goals attainability to diminish. But, if you set a monetary goal based upon when you retire, which has no bearing on age, you don't have the out. The level of goal setting commitment changes and becomes more focused.

EFFECTIVE GOAL SETING

In this scenario, if you are 30 years old and you start a retirement fund, you may have enough money to retire early. You can retire early because in the mind there is not early or late. There is only a set goal. Goal setting this way does not allow you the "out" due to a particular event or time limit. We have to understand how to frame the language around setting our goals. The mind needs direct focus on how to complete a goal and for the most part this happens unconsciously. Setting goals that do not stimulate the mind will cause the mind to find ways to avoid goal achievement.

Lets break down how the mind reacts to goal setting into small chunks. If we stick with the retirement fund examples we can see differences in the way the mind perceives goals. Lets say you set up a savings account to deposit $25 from your checking account each week. For a period of time the deduction from the checking account is very knowable. Depending on your financial situation this may cause some stress. But after a short time the $25 deduction becomes normal in the mind. The stress of seeing a $25 reduction on your checking account bank statement starts to mean less and less.

Over time the $25 deduction will become irrelevant to how you live your life. This means that what you thought the $25 would be needed for prior to being deducted from your checking account is no longer valid. Out of sight out of mind. The $25 will have no bearing on your normal weekly spending. The same idea that applies to setting financial goals can be used for most any type of goal setting. If you look at the process of setting goals in a way which implements the idea of baby steps things become more simplistic.

The idea is to set every goal with a simplistic ideology so that it feels almost second nature. When processes of goal setting feels natural goal achievement stressors become non factors. There's no perceptible disruption, and thus little to no resistance to overcome. So to set effective goals: 1) Make your goals small like baby steps. 2) keep them free from time constraints. Time is meaningless to a goal that you achieve. 3) Set goals that are 100% attainable in your mind. Large or small the goal must feel real and must feel attainable. The three tips herein only applies to people who are just getting started and are not yet experts at goal achievement. Goal achievement like most things is an exercise one must perform over and over to become good at it.

It is a good practice to create positive changes in your life that are subtle, so you barely realize the change is occurring. There are no time constraints because you are in no hurry. You can take as much time as you need to put in place subtle changes in your thinking and behavior. The idea is to take action now, and do so with the purpose in mind of doing better than the day before. Whether you realize it or not, even at the beginning stages of taking action subtle changes will be occurring. Effective goal setting techniques work every time if you set them up correctly in the beginning. Setup a small effective goal today and start changing your life for a better tomorrow.

by: Michaelson Williams, TSX