Goals, easy to set, very hard to follow through on. We all love to aim high. We feel almost noble setting such high expectations for ourselves. If you keep failing to achieve your goals, it may be time to alter your expectations.
This will serve you well in many areas of your life, but that’s another blog post for another company to write.
If you’re like the majority of humans, you fall prey to the “I’ll start tomorrow” mindset. Human nature, am’I’right?
If you tend to keep missing the mark, we have a few sure ways to help you keep on path to achieving your goals.
Before we begin, there’s one thing you need to let set in. Don’t let a missed goal negatively affect you or your team. If you are setting goals the right way, you should miss them every now and then. These things happen and tend to show us where we could stand to make improvements elsewhere.
Missing them repeatedly despite working hard to achieve them is more of a sign of problems in your goal setting process than it is a reflection of the ability to get the job done. At BrightGauge we like the SMART goal framework...
- Specific. Does your goal refer to an important, well-defined part of your job?
- Measurable. Can your progress be measured? You must be able to mark your progress and have a definable line of success for each goal.
- Achievable. Can your goal be realistically achieved? Goals should be difficult, but not so difficult you repeatedly fail to complete them despite giving your best effort.
- Relevant. Is your goal relevant to your job? Is it a results-based goal that will help you and your company?
- Time-bound. Is the goal attached to a specific timeframe? There must be a definitive end to each goal period.
While sticking with this, we also like to refer to the Objective Key Result (OKR) framework, which is widely used in the tech community. This helps us to be sure to identify our objectives and define their measurable results at the outset of goal setting. So before getting down on yourself about a missed goal, consider whether you’ve set the right goal to begin with. As you evaluate your goals, take the following into account.
Reevaluate Your Goals
As you progress towards accomplishing your goals, step back to evaluate whether you’ve set an outcome or process goal.
- Outcome Goals are the end result of what you’re hoping to achieve. Ex. A salesperson may have an outcome goal to make 20 new sales in one month.
- Process Goals cover the steps taken to reach your desired outcome. Ex. That same salesperson may set a goal of contacting 10 prospects per week to reach their outcome goal of making 20 new sales this month.
Take a look at a goal you recently missed. Is it an outcome or a process goal? If you had set an outcome goal, re-working the goal as a process goal can be a great way to improve the achievability of the goal without changing the larger reasoning behind it.
In general, most goals we set should be process goals. We are in control of the processes we apply to our work. Completed outcome goals are always the result of solid processes. Setting excellent process goals provides you with the foundation for hitting those larger outcome goals without having your success or failure directly tied to them.
Review Goals Regularly
At BrightGauge, we review all goals on a weekly-basis to ensure we’re staying on course. If the trend seems to fall out of the timeframe we projected the goal’s course to run, we reevaluate.
We find it beneficial to include these reviews as part of your team’s weekly meeting or at least an email sent to the team with an update should be reviewed. You’d be surprised at just how helpful it is to have other people holding you accountable for the promises you’ve made to yourself. Or just knowing that they will be asking themselves “why” if you are behind will keep that motivation going.
It’s ok to step back, and insert change. Better to pause than to stay on the wrong course. By reviewing goals every week, you’re more likely correct when needed—and actually continue taking steps towards achieving that goal. None of this “let’s start today and pick it back up next week” stuff! Goals exist to effectively insert change into any routine.
Same Goal, New Strategy
Goals can change, priorities can shift, things get stale when they run-on for too long. You will never reach a positive outcome if you let yourself get down about past missed goals.
If you continuously fail to reach a set goal, maybe you’re just aiming too high. Being ambitious isn’t such a bad thing, but setting goals that aren’t attainable does wear on you over time.
If you find that you’re not hitting the mark, try to break it down into mini-goals. If you surpass your goal each time, maybe it’s time you step it up, and aim a little higher.
We get by on a little reward here and there. So set your goals right to celebrate more wins.
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