4 Points On Setting Growth-Oriented And Powerful Goals

As I talked about on Monday, anyone can set goals, but there is a technique to setting great goals and accomplishing them. They drive you further and help you to grow yourself more and more.

I shared 3 elements for setting great goals that can motivate and inspire you to accomplish them. However, I want to expanding on it more.

I believe goals are incredibly important. As I said before, they are basically the driving force for a lot of stuff I’ve been realizing. Things about myself, how I work, and so much more.

As such, I want to share a few more things to keep in mind when it comes to goal setting. These other things, I believe, will give you more control over yourself, your life, and your work.

Focus On The Direction Not The Destination

This is something I discovered fairly early on in my work and that is to focus on the direction not the destination. What I mean by that is when setting a goal, don’t focus on hitting the target bang on.

I find when it comes to thinking that way you either win or you lose. In a sense it’s tough love, but as a solopreneur, I find it discouraging. As an entrepreneur it’s important to keep your spirits high and to stay motivated because no one else will do that for you when starting out.

Instead focus on the direction. It prompts you to still acknowledge if you accomplished it or not, but you are more focused on the process as opposed to whether you did it or not. For me it draws out more “why” questions and figuring out a why can lead to understanding yourself and even your purpose in life.

Have Only A Few Goals

Even in cases where you are setting yearly goals, you still want the amount of goals to be small in number. I personally go for 3 big (yearly) goals and no more than 10 short (weekly) term goals.

The idea is you don’t want to overwhelm yourself. I see that with to-do lists a lot. When people write a long to-do list it becomes a source of stress. People get overwhelmed by how many items there are and become unproductive, saying to-do lists don’t work at all.

With this method, you’re not at risk of overwhelming yourself. It’s easier to have a few goals and only have more than 3 when you have a lot of smaller tasks mixed in.

It makes things more manageable plus it also gives your a good fix of dopamine.

Your Short-Term Goals Are Your Expectations

Speaking of dopamine, you also don’t want to go overboard with having too many goals. The reason is dopamine. It’s a feel good drug that our brain produces. Worse thing is that it can lead people to addiction.

In other words you can easily become addicted to marking things off of lists. It’s why I put no more than 10 and even still I hover around 5 or 6.

Anyway that addiction of completing tasks quickly so we can mark off of lists can get to us. It can make you feel like you are making progress. The reality though could be that you are making little momentum in what you are completing. Or even the quality of your work is declining.

Instead see your short-term goals as your expectations for the week or the month. Going back to what I wrote about on Monday, take the time to ask yourself why you have this goal here. Your goal list is more or less a list of things you expect yourself to complete within the week.

This ensures you filter out unnecessary goals, but also puts into perspective what sort of week you want work-wise.

Don’t Change Themes During The Process

Another thing I said on Monday was that my goals were changing drastically from month to month when I first started. I wanted to add variety and keep people interested. I realized that was a mistake.

The reality is that it didn’t give me much progress overall. Looking back at it, I was confused and I also lacked motivation on a regular basis. I believe that’s the case for other people. Not to mention it doesn’t give you a chance to master that skill or develop the habit if you are constantly changing goals.

Instead keep the goals consistent. From these weekly goals there’s only a few times I actually do change them up. In those situations I actually explain why I’m making that shift.

Other than that I only increased how many times I would do something or increased the length of time it would take. For example I went from exercising 3 times for 10 minutes to 4 times for 10 minutes. Same goal, but more times I have to do it.

Yes it may seem “boring” however what’s more entertaining: making new announcements every week or month, or actually showing momentum, growth and consistency through each step you take?

What Other Tips Would You Suggest?

Leave a comment down below on it. Tomorrow I’ll be talking about some of the quality people that can lead you to a happier life!

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon

Eric S Burdon is a Youtuber, Blogger, and Author who focuses on positivity, mindset and growth, sharing his journey through these.

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