Goals
How to set a goal you will actually finish
Almost all goal advice is about the setting. Setting is the easy part and you are probably good at it by now. The finishing happens somewhere else entirely, and it is governed by about four things.
You have set goals before. That is the awkward fact underneath this whole subject. You are not a beginner who needs to be told to make them specific. You have written specific ones, on a good Sunday, in a nice notebook, and then in March you found the notebook.
So this is not about how to phrase a goal. It is about what makes one survive an ordinary Tuesday when you are tired and nobody is watching.
One at a time, and it is fewer than you think
The single most common reason a goal dies is that it had five siblings.
Every goal takes attention, and attention in an adult life is close to fully allocated already. Four goals do not get a quarter of your effort each. They compete, and the one that wins on any given evening is whichever is easiest, which is usually the least important one. By April all four are equally untouched and the conclusion you draw is about your character rather than about arithmetic.
One goal at a time is not a modest ambition. It is the version that actually finishes, and finishing one changes what you believe about the next one, which is the real compounding asset here.
Aim at a behaviour, not an outcome
"Lose ten kilos" is an outcome. You do not control it directly, the feedback is slow and noisy, and the only thing you can do on a Tuesday is hope. "Walk thirty minutes after work on weekdays" is a behaviour. You either did it or you did not, you know by six o'clock, and doing it is entirely within your power.
Outcomes make good destinations and terrible instructions. Write the outcome down once at the top of the page, then work exclusively on the behaviour underneath it.
A goal you cannot fail or complete today is not a goal you are working on. It is a hope you are checking on.
Hard, but specific
This is one of the better established findings in the field, from fifty years of goal setting research: specific and difficult goals produce better performance than vague ones, and better than easy ones, and much better than "do your best".
The two halves matter together. Difficult and vague gives you dread. Specific and trivial gives you nothing to be proud of, and pride is fuel. Specific and hard enough that you are not certain you will manage it is the combination that produces effort.
The condition is that you have to actually accept it. A hard goal somebody else set, or one you set to impress an imagined audience, produces resentment rather than effort. If you notice you would be relieved to abandon it, that is your data.
Name the day, the time and the first move
Then the part that does most of the work. Not "I will write more", but "I will write for twenty five minutes at seven, at the kitchen table, opening the file called chapter three".
Plans in that if then form are one of the most reliable effects in behavioural science. A meta analysis across ninety four independent tests found a medium to large improvement in goal attainment from writing the plan that way and nothing else. It works because it deletes the decision. At seven o'clock you are not weighing anything. You are executing a sentence you already wrote.
Also plan the failure
- Name the two things most likely to stop you this week. Be specific: a late meeting, a bad night, your sister visiting.
- Write the if then for each. If the meeting runs late, I walk at nine instead.
- Decide in advance what a missed day means. It means the next day is not missed. It does not mean the goal is over.
The two things nobody plans and everybody needs
A review that happens whether or not it is going well
Goals do not fail on the day you break them. They fail in the two weeks afterwards, when nobody looks. A fixed weekly review, ten minutes, same time, is what turns a broken week into information rather than into an ending.
Ask three questions. What actually happened. What got in the way. What is the one thing for next week. That is the entire ritual, and it is worth more than any planning app.
Somebody who will ask
A private goal is negotiable with the only person present, and that person is on your side in the wrong way. A goal somebody else knows about, and will raise on a specific day, has a floor under it.
You do not need a cheerleader. You need somebody who remembers what you said in week one and mentions it in week five, when you have quietly revised it downwards and hoped nobody noticed.
The whole method, in five lines
- One goal. Not three.
- Write the outcome once, then work only on the behaviour under it.
- Make it specific and slightly harder than comfortable.
- Name day, time, place and first move. Plan the two likely failures too.
- Ten minute review every week, and one person who will ask.
The last line is the one people cannot arrange
Everything above can be done alone, in a notebook, tonight. The review that happens in a bad week and the person who asks in week five are the parts that need somebody else, and they are the parts that decide it. Clarior sets you work, remembers what you said, and comes back to it.
It is deliberately hard to start, because we would rather have fewer people who are in the right place.
See whether it is for youSources
- Locke, E. A. and Latham, G. P. Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation, American Psychologist, 2002.
- Gollwitzer, P. M. and Sheeran, P. Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta analysis of effects and processes, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2006.
- Oettingen, G. Future thought and behaviour change, on mental contrasting and the value of facing the obstacle rather than only the wish, European Review of Social Psychology, 2012.
- Sheeran, P. and Webb, T. L. The Intention Behavior Gap, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2016.
This article is general information, not medical advice.