Goal Setting: How can we set ourselves up for success?

Why do we need goals? Do we need goals? It is Coaching month here at Boo and Patti, our Organisational Psychologist has explored how goal setting can set us up for success.

This morning, I was reading the action for happiness website (https://www.actionforhappiness.org/10-keys-to-happier-living) and they have released a publication called “10 keys to happier living”; one of the keys is direction and it is all about having goals to look forward to; to motivate and challenge us, to give us a sense of direction, as well as satisfaction and accomplishment upon achievement of goals. Sounds great! Lock & Latham [1] have also spent decades researching goal setting. Some of the impacts they discovered as a consequence of goal setting were behavioural change, affected job performance, mobilised energy and effort, motivation to work at an increased level and the consequential achievement of goals has been shown to increase joy and life satisfaction. Again, sounds great! I’d love a bit of that!

So where do we start?

From a personal point of view, I have struggled slightly following the pandemic. Before the pandemic hit, I always had clearly defined goals and I had my next career steps clearly mapped out, but with everything put on hold during the pandemic, I put my goals on hold and lost touch with them, if I’m honest it’s been a bit of a struggle getting back into goal setting. I’m not sure if this is because of a fear of things changing again or the pandemic making me take a more flexible approach to life, but I have definitely felt a loss of drive and excitement from not having goals.

Here are a few of our top tips to goal setting, whether you have a clear goal yet or you’re still deciding!

• Work with a coach to help decide, shape, keep on track and celebrate your goals.
• Decide on your goal for happiness and joy, rather than something you think you should achieve or is on someone else’s agenda. This is such an important point as doing someone else’s goals is unlikely to bring us the happiness and motivation that goal setting can bring.
• Write them down – the art of putting pen to paper can help us to solidify our goals, help us to commit to action and give us clarity.
• Ask yourself questions such as… how will you know when you have achieved your goal? What will it look and feel life?
• Make it SMART – Specific, Measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound
• Set goals as positive statements, writing them as what we want rather than what we don’t want.
  For example;
  “I would like to grow some plants in my garden” rather than “I don’t want my garden to be a mess anymore”

And some more..

• Tell someone – once its out there we often feel more inclined to keep it up. A coach can help you keep track of your goal!
• Break the goal down into tiny steps, reduce the overwhelm of a big goal and set several smaller goals.
• Plan your first step- this is the hardest step to take so ensure this is thought about and an easy first step to take.
• Set performance goals rather than outcome goals; things will happen that we can’t control, if we set goals that can be knocked off course, it can be disheartening. Instead set performance goals, on the way we will approach tasks, rather than outcome goals.
• Keep going! If it’s getting tough, reflect and consider do you need support with your goal? Does it need readjusting?
• Don’t impact your wellbeing by putting your goal achievement over yourself. Remember to take care of yourself, to rest and to ensure you prioritise your wellbeing.

So, we’ve done the thing, we’ve achieved our goal…what now? It’s time to celebrate! We often miss this step and move onto the next thing in life but taking the time to celebrate our achievements is a really powerful tool to improve our self-confidence, to give us motivation for our next goal and to document and embrace our development!

I hope this has been helpful! If you would like to explore using a coach for goal setting, do get in touch with us on hello@boo-consulting.com

Happy goal setting!

Love,

Patti xx

 

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0030507368900044; https://www.amazon.com/Theory-Goal-Setting-Task-Performance/dp/0139131388