5 Practical Tips to Set Goals for Success -

If you are working harder, ask yourself if you are also working smarter to gain the most out of your life. One way to do that is to set goals for yourself. After all, you would not set out on a major journey with no idea of your destination. This blog provides reasons for why you need to set goals and step-by-step practical tips on how to set the goals.

In this blog, we will discuss:

Table of Contents

Why do you need to set goals?

Goal setting

Gives clarity on long-term and short-term vision
Creates accountability
Helps organize time, energy and resources
Raises confidence after achieving the goal

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” – Andrew Carnegie

Now you know the importance of setting goals! Why wait? Let’s see how to set them up!

Goal Setting Process

It consists of two steps: Identification and Definition.

Step One: Identification

This is a critical step that requires self-introspection and will help you drop some unrealistic goals which will save you time and energy. Here are three tips to identify your goals for success:

Tip 1: Categorize goals to balance your life and focus on the right priorities

To lead a happy and successful life, you need to continuously balance all six pillars, Family, Health, Career, Financial Management, Personal Growth, and Fun.

I had neglected my professional development for a long time. I justified that I was too busy with other aspects of life. To pursue professional growth, I shifted focus away from family and finances causing negative ripple effects in those areas. Lesson learned – I need to continuously balance all these six categories. If I had, there wouldn’t have been major setbacks.

Make sure that your short-term and long-term goals are balanced.

If you have too many short-term goals that aren’t linked to long-term goals, you’ll get brief satisfaction but suffer long-term consequences. When I started my career, I focused on saving money for short-term goals such as a car, travel, and fun and neglected to begin my retirement savings for a few years. Despite the fact that I began saving later, I had lost investment time. Don’t lose sight of your long-term goals!

Tip 2: Start with ‘Why’ to gain clarity and believe in it

The purpose creates inspiration and helps you remember the vision.

Finalize 1-2 key reasons to define must-have vs. nice-to-have choices.

Let’s say I want to buy a car. The reasons are as follows: 1.) increase mobility 2.) cut back on the amount of money spent on Uber. Keeping this in mind, I can look for a vehicle that would serve me.

Never set a goal to emulate someone else’s success.

For instance, your acquaintance rose up the ranks at work to become a manager. This isn’t something you should automatically set as a goal. Examine whether you want to be one or if you possess the necessary skills. Set a target only if you wish to contribute more and receive the appropriate benefits, not because a buddy has done so.

Tip 3: Consider factors that may jeopardize the success and ensure you can overcome them

Here are some of the Risks/ Barriers I experienced with various goals and how I planned to overcome them:

Barriers	Mitigation plan
Sacrifices needed to achieve the goal	Reduce time for socializing and for playing video games to make time for my goal
Additional support required	Request support from family members with chores to manage time
Mental	Worried about failure due to fear of unknown, methodical planning and execution is essential
Past experiences	Need to execute differently this time based on unsuccessful experiences in the past

As I mentioned in the beginning, you may drop some goals at this step because they are unrealistic due to unavailability of required resources (time, funds, people, tools etc.). However, if you have selected a goal, you will be committing yourself with open eyes knowing the risks involved and whether you are prioritizing the goals in a balanced way.

Step Two: Define a goal

After you’ve decided on a goal, you’ll need to lay it out for planning and commitment. Here are two tips.

Tip 4: Use the SMART technique to define your goals

This provides you with direction, clarity and creates confidence in achieving your goal. Refer to the definition.

Tip 5: Write it down to improve the success rate

Writing your goals creates accountability. My personal experience has taught me that when I write down my goals, I am more likely to achieve them. For instance, after my annual physical every year, I would make a huge goal in my head to exercise for 2-3 hours every day. I did not meet my goal. Once I wrote it down, I realized how impractical it was. Writing it down helped me set a more realistic goal of ½ hr exercise a day and served as a reminder to keep working on my goal.

Choose the right phrases and words as they bring clarity and help you remember it well.

Research shows that writing down a goal improves your success rate. Refer to The Psychology Of Writing Down Goals.

Following these 5 tips will help you set realistic and balanced goals with a high success rate.

My Goals for Success

Let’s visualize the goal-setting when the identification and definition steps are followed:

You can download a template here.

Personal Experiences

Let me tell you about my recent experiences of goal setting.

Experience 1:

Vision: My family had a short-term goal of taking a FUN trip with one of my friends’ family.

Identified the WHY: 1. Have fun 2. Explore new places together. Talked through these BARRIERS and planned accordingly: vacation timing, schedules, finances, etc.

Then we moved on to define the goal: Take a family trip in the 2021 summer to Glacier National Park. It was SPECIFIC (Knew when, where and, with whom), MEASURABLE (One trip), ATTAINABLE (Scheduled vacation, finances, hotel availability, etc), RELEVANT (Spend fun time with family), TIME-BOUND (2021 summer), WROTE DOWN (Created group chat).

Result: We successfully achieved our goal.

Experience 2:

My friend’s group of 10 had a short-term goal for the past 2 years – Wanted to make a four-day FUN trip to Las Vegas. Our goal was SPECIFIC (knew when, where and, with whom), MEASURABLE (one trip), ATTAINABLE (saved money), RELEVANT (fun together), WROTE DOWN (Created group chat).

Result: Our goal didn’t happen. I recognize the reasons for the failure. We could not set a definitive TIMELINE. This goal depended on our family commitments and we didn’t plan to mitigate this BLOCKER.

In essence, this blog helps you nail down “Why”, “What”, “When”, and “Who” to set goals for success. Ready to set some goals? We would love to hear your goal-setting stories.

Stay tuned for our next blog explaining “How” to work towards your goal.