Posted by: Darlene Duncan CWDP, JSS, CCC, JCTC, JCDC
Training Coordinator
I recently read an article on common goal setting mistakes. Below is what I took away from that article.
1. Setting Unrealistic Goals – Setting goals that you know you’re not going to be able to achieve is setting yourself up to fail. Think about the goals you’re setting for yourself. Make sure they are something you can actually achieve. Make them something that will require effort on your part yet be achievable. If there are no challenges in your goals, you’ll soon get bored with them and lose interest. Use the SMART Method of goal setting. Each goal should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
2. Setting Someone Else’s Goals – While your boss may set specific goals for you related to your work, you need to make sure you set your own goals as they relate to your overall career and your life in general. Friends and relatives sometimes think they know what is best for us and want to tell you what goals you should set. Trying to achieve someone else’s goals is rarely a good idea.
3. Underestimating the Time Needed to Complete a Goal – You know how long it takes you to accomplish different tasks. Use that knowledge to realistically set the time frame for the goals you have set for yourself. Allow yourself the necessary time to achieve your goals. Many people look at what they’re trying to achieve, estimate the time they think it will take and then add 15% to that figure.
4. Setting Goals for Only One Area of Your Life – Setting goals for your career is a good thing however, you shouldn’t stop there. Make sure you include some fun goals for yourself. Maybe last year you didn’t go to the gym as much as you would have liked. Set yourself a goal of going to the gym at least three times a week. If not the gym, then find something that you enjoy and make a specific goal in relation to it.
5. Appreciating Failure – Sometimes failing to achieve a goal we’ve set for ourselves can help us the next time we are goal setting. Perhaps you just didn’t allow yourself enough time and now you have a better idea of the time required to attain your goal. Failure to achieve a goal shouldn’t be used as an excuse to give up. Examine the goal you were working toward and determine how close you came and all the smaller achievements that went into getting as far along as you did. Remember what Babe Ruth said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
6. Not Tracking Your Progress – Goal planning is a lot like business planning. Sometimes you have to adjust the plan to more realistically fit the circumstances of your life. If you’re not tracking your progress it makes it virtually impossible to know when or if, you need to make adjustments. Therefore, you need to review the progress you’re making toward achieving your goals. Should you end up not achieving all you set out to do, this tracking will show you what you did achieve and perhaps where you might have needed to make some adjustments. In addition, when you set a large goal for yourself you need to break it down into smaller pieces. For example, if you’re working toward a degree, the main goal is to get the degree; however, the goals on the way to that goal should be something like completion of either specific classes or of a semester. Little successes on the way to big goals help keep the motivation and confidence alive.
7. Setting Negative Goals – Rather than setting your goals with negative words such as, “I won’t watch so much television this year”, instead use more positive words. For example, if you’re not going to watch so much TV, what are you planning on doing with that time? I’ll spend more time with my family or I’ll exercise more or I’ll take a pottery class. It’s much easier and more pleasant to achieve a positive goal than to avoid a negative.
8. Too Many Goals – Be careful not to overburden yourself with so many goals that none of them get achieved. Your goal plan should be challenging without being stressful and crammed with so many things that it’s impossible to achieve them all. Focus on one or two for your career and one or two for your personal life. Trying to achieve too many goals at one time is setting yourself up for failure. As you accomplish goals, you can replace them with new ones.
Setting goals is something that you should do throughout the year, not just at the start of the New Year. New Year’s resolutions are often ignored or forgotten before Valentine’s Day. Creating a goal plan and following through with it, should be a regular part of life.
“Failing to plan, is planning to fail.” Alan Lakein
