Taking the Mystery out of Goal Setting

Taking the Mystery Out of Goal Setting Part # 1

By John Thurman

Do you see a man diligent in his business?

He shall stand before kings.

Proverbs 22:29

Do you ever wonder why some people set goals and actually met them and others don’t?

The research tells us that the secret is not just setting a goal, but how you set your goals-the way you think about whatever it is that you want to do and how you will get there-is every bit as important. Success is more likely when you focus on the right details the right way.

It is not about doing your best. In the absence of a specific goal, doing your best somewhat ironically tends to produce work that is far from the best-it is a recipe for mediocre.

So what is the alternative? According to Latham and Locke, the alternative is to set specific, difficult goals.

Why are specific, difficult goals more motivating than do your best? The specific part is pretty straightforward. Deciding for yourself exactly what you want to achieve removes the possibilities of settling for less-of telling yourself that what you have done is “good enough.” When your goal is vague, it’s too tempting to take the easy way out when you have gotten tired, bored, or discouraged. But there is no fooling yourself when you set a specific goal.

What about the difficult part? I don’t know about you, but when I first looked into this concept of difficult goals, I thought, “ What if I set the bar to high and fail?’ The idea is not to set it too high or make it impossible to reach, but to stretch. Difficult but possible is the key. Why? Because more difficult goals cause you to. Often unconsciously, increase your effort, focus, and commitment to the goal; persist longer; and make better use of the most effective strategies.

Latham and Locke have tested this process on loggers, governmental agencies as well as entrepreneurs and business owners. Every group or individual they have test has proven their theory. The process of setting specific, challenging goals created a cycle of success and happiness that can repeat itself over and over again, creating what Latham and Locke call the “high performance cycle.”1

When people think about what they are doing in why terms, they are guided by the big picture-their smaller, everyday actions become a part of something larger and more important. The are more connected to long-term goals. As a result, when people think why rather than what, they are less impulsive, less vulnerable to temptation, and more likely to plan their actions in advance. “Thinking why, they feel more certain of who they are and what they want. And they are much less likely to feel that forces outside of them (like other people, luck, or fate) are controlling what happens to them.”

Steven K. Scott has one of the best, practical books on getting clear about goals and where you are going. One of his key concepts is that of diligence, which fits in nicely with the purpose of this article.

“Diligence is a learnable skill that combines creative persistence, a smart-working effort rightly planned and rightly performed in a timely, efficient, and effective manner to attain a result that is pure and of the highest quality of excellence.”2

People who believe that the pursuit of their goals and dreams will be difficult tend to plan more, put in more effort, and take more action in pursuit of their goals and dreams. They expect to have to work hard, so that’s exactly what they do. Ultimately, people who think that reaching their goal will be a breeze simply are not prepared for what lies ahead of them, and they can be devastated when the dreams they’ve enjoyed dreaming about so much don’t actually come true.

The best strategy to use when working on a goal seems to be to think positively about how it will be when you achieve your goal, while thinking realistically about what it will take to get you there. In counseling, we call this mental contrasting-first you imagine attaining your goal, and then you reflect on the obstacles that stand in the way. My good friend, Gayle Foster, who is an Executive Director, in Premier Designs Jewelry calls this strategic thinking. Whichever term you use, and I like Gayle’s term better, means that you are turning day-dreams into reality, by bringing into focus what you need to do to make it happen.

When people believe they can succeed and use this strategy when setting their goals, they routinely outperform those who are equally confident but whose thoughts are overly optimistic and don’t take into account the challenges that they might face.

Action Plan

Here are some concrete things you can begin to to do enhance your successful goal setting.

Be specific

Make them hard, but realistic. You will have to stretch our of your comfort zone.

Think Why. Think why am I doing this? Then think about what you will do when you accomplish the goal or dream.

Think positive, but don’t underestimate what it will take. Have a future-oriented, but reality-based point of view.

Use the strategic thinking model of thinking positively about how it will be when you achieve your goal, while thinking realistically about what it will take to get you there.