Establishing Goals

5 minute read

In this article we are going to talk about. What goals are ? How to set Goals ? What makes really good goal ?

Organize your life goal

Businessman Builds a Tower

Sort out your life goals. Write them up in a paper using pen. When you write goal on paper it becomes more concrete. You do not need to worry how those goals will happen. Believe it whatever you will write will happen ! While writing don't think will this goal happen or not. How this magic happens ? Your subconscious mind will make it happen for you. For Subconscious mind there is nothing impossible. There is no boundary for your subconscious mind it can go beyond anything. I just want you to get a piece of paper, write down what your ideal life will be like.What things would you like to be doing in your ideal life?

Example:

  • Learn Typescript and Angular within 30 days
  • Do daily exercise 30 mins
  • Do Meditation for 10 mins
  • Get Job where you enjoy at work etc.

Every morning and night before going to bed look at your list. It is important to have your life goals.

Moving beyond SMART goals

SMART is a very popular acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting.

  • Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
  • Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
  • Achievable (agreed, attainable).
  • Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resource, results-based).
  • Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

However, Chris Croft  believes that Goals which are achievable are always realistic and it is specific therefore we need something different model for goal settings. Lets go beyond SMART and find some new model for establishing our goals.

According to Chris Croft, Your goal should be SPVEM

  • Scary
  • Positive
  • Visual
  • Excited(emotional).
  • Measurable (meaningful, motivating).

S = Scary

evil clown in a dark forest in a white veil

If you want to achieve success you have to go beyond your comfort zone.

I think your goals first feature is little bit scary, you should be thinking, ooh I don't know, could I do that, could I really do that? If you make your goal scary then your subconscious expanding slightly as it sort of thinks, well maybe I could, and as you start to visualize that goal more and more, you start to believe that you actually can achieve it. Example if you are programmer you can set one goal say I want to learn Machine Learning that could be scary.

So your goals should be a little bit scary, they shouldn't be within your comfort zone, 'cause those are gonna happen anyway.

P = Positive

positive mind, vibes and life

Positive goals are good for your professional and personal live. Therefore, make sure you have positive goals. Example, if you are afraid of sleeping alone in the night then instead of setting goal saying I will not be afraid anymore lets say your goal should be I will chant mantra before sleeping or Read Book before sleeping this way you will automatically not be afraid and get sleep soon. Rather setting your goal for I will not tell lie anymore you can say I will start saying truth henceforth etc. These way you can set your positive goals.

V = Visual

Clear vision through glasses

Your goal should be visual, in order to get it visual draw some picture of your goal. Suppose you want to be a poet then bring photo of your favorite poet and stick it in front of your study or office table and watch him daily, that will inspire you to write. Suppose you want to be a CEO of your company so start visualizing your goal and put some pictures draw your own strategies and start learning more about them.

E = Exciting / Emotional

Young man success celebration at office

We should pick our goal that should be exciting. We should have some emotion about that goal and it should create excitement within our mind. From my childhood I wanted to teach, I am personally very excited about teaching. Therefore, when I set my goal that I will be Pluralsight author I had emotion attached to it and was super excited.  My emotion and excitement drove me t achieve my goal and I became Pluralsight author also I end up creating my own YouTube channel to teach software.

M = Measurable

measure tape

Goal should be always measurable. You should be able to set a measurable goal easily like I should be able to do 50 push-ups or run 10 miles daily etc. When you think I want to learn RxJS okay you will keep thinking and may not start learning it. Instead if you say I want to have hands on knowledge on RxJS within 20 days. I want to get my one new client within this month. This kind of measurable goals help you to be always alert and track your progress.

Distilling your Goal

Whiskey Distillation

Your goal should not be just to get success or achievement. Rather it should be first enjoyable.

Enjoyment for present and achievement in the future. If you are not achieving anything from your goal and not enjoying then please give more thinking to your goal. Search for the job where you enjoy while working. Achievement outside of work, you should achieve something that you could say I did that and I am happy. Suppose you wrote one article and published it or you gave some talk on seminar etc. Anything personal in life that you do for your achievement.

I think your goals should include enjoyment goals, things that you want to spend more time on, and also achievement goals, things that you want to achieve in the future. If there is nothing that you enjoy at work, or you're not achieving anything outside work, then maybe you should do a bit more thinking and add a few more goals.

  1. Divide your goals into enjoy and achieve at home and work.
  2. Add dates to your goals and plan Example: I would go to Europe by next year.
  3. Spend one minute a day focusing on those goals. Example: once you wrote in a paper your plan spend everyday one minute to visualize them so that your subconscious mind will start working towards your goal actively.

Conclusion

Please let me know what do you think about this article and what are your goals ?