Originally appeared on: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/qdtarchive/how-to-set-the-right-goals/
January 4, 2011
Discover the secrets to setting the right goals and then actually accomplishing them.
It’s New Years! I just love New Years. It’s the time of year we stop and reflect on the year ahead. And we set our resolutions. Those are the promises we make to ourselves so our lives will be better, stronger, and faster in the year ahead. We resolve to work out, lose weight, get a job, stand up for ourselves, and maybe even start a company. Our resolutions are often major life changes. At Bernice’s urging, for example, Melvin has resolved to start showering once a week, even if he doesn’t need it. He’s very excited at the prospect. If it works, he says, next year he might even start using soap.
How to Set the Right Goals
Many of us don’t have a Bernice to give us our goals and keep us on track. We must come up with our own resolutions. If we come up with the wrong ones, our chances of reaching them are only slightly higher than our chances of being hit by lightning after saying to our friend, “If I’m lying about this, let me be hit by lightning.” We set resolutions like “I’ll get back to a 32″ waist” or “I’ll quit smoking” or “I’ll take over the world and live at Disney World free… Forever.” These are great goals! But they’re only part of the story.
Outcome Goals Set Direction
These are outcome goals. They are very inspirational. Who wouldn’t want to live at Disney World? It’s the only place in the world where it’s a status symbol to have your hotel room infested by mice. Outcome goals inspire us so much that they provide all kinds of motivation. If you don’t want to get up in the morning, just conjure up a quick mental fantasy of riding Peter Pan’s Magic Ride 500 times with *no *waiting in line. You’ll be so motivated you get right out of bed and go right to work to make it come true.
One of my outcome goals this year is to learn to sight-sing. This New Year’s, we sang carols in four-part harmony. Young Nathaniel could not only sight-sing, it seemed like he had perfect pitch, could keep track of each part, could direct the chorus, and could do it all while reading Nietzsche and writing a book report. How inspiring! I quickly moved from inspiration to envy, followed by despair and depression that I’ll never be half as good as this young man who’s half my age. (Stupid kid.)
You see, outcome goals not only motivate, they can demotivate, because it’s the outcome goals we use to measure our progress. If I were closer to achieving my goal using my outcome goal as a measure, that could be downright motivational in a good way. But if Nathaniel represents the me-I-want-to-be, I have a long, long way to go, and that’s depressing.
Why You Need to Set Process Goals** **
Outcome goals don’t tell you how to move forward, they just tell you where you’re going. Most people only set outcome goals, which they then never meet. To turn the outcome into action, you need process goals. Process goals tell you what you should be doing each day or each week to reach your outcome goals. My outcome is to look like Tom Cruise, so I’ll start by getting a 32-inch waistline by the end of the year. My process goal is to do 45 minutes of cardio three times a week. My process goal includes numbers, and is really specific, so I can measure whether I’m doing the cardio long enough and often enough.
Process Goals Set the How
If you can’t find a process goal you enjoy, consider changing your outcome goal.
Process goals measure the effort you should be putting in to reach your outcome. Monitor your process goals ruthlessly! First, make sure you can meet them. After only a few weeks, I’ll know if I can get to the gym three times a week or just once. If it seems I’m not meeting my process goals, it’s a sign I should find different ways to shrink my waistline.
Second, even if you’re accomplishing your process goals, make sure they lead where you want to go. Just doing cardio may not get me to my goal. I might need another process goal like, “Eat no more than two Oreo ice cream cakes each month.” Ouch! Or maybe my chosen “how” just doesn’t lead where I want to go at all. I want to look like Tom Cruise, but diet and exercise just won’t do it. My genes have predetermined that I’ll go through life looking like a garden gnome. Yippee. Maybe I need a whole new process goal. Like finding a way to transplant my brain into Tom Cruise’s body. Bwah hah hah hah hah!
Why Process Goals Are More Important Than Outcome Goals
Outcome goals are the “what.” Process goals are the “how.” It’s tempting to list your outcome goals, then jump right in. Stop! Your process goals are actually the more important of the two. They determine how you spend your time. How you spend your time determines how happy you are. So process goals—not outcomes—create your quality of life.
I met a Fortune 500 CEO who grew up with the goal “I want to be a Fortune 500 CEO.” His process goals went something like this: “Find a high-paying job. Work 12-hour days 7 days a week to show my loyalty.” He found a high-paying job at a company he hated, with people he didn’t like, doing work he despised. He did it 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 30 years. He got his outcome and hated his life every step of the way.
How to Choose the Best Process Goals
Choose process goals that lead to your big outcomes, and make sure they’re things you enjoy, so you love your life while you’re working towards your outcome. If you’re a salesperson whose goal is to buckle down and sell twice as much this year, there are many ways to do it. You could cold call more, present at conferences, or sell more to existing clients. If you love public speaking, your process goals might to present at a certain number of trade shows. If you can’t imagine being onstage, but you love one-on-one relationships, your process goals might be to have dinner with two past clients each week. If you can’t find a process goal you enjoy to get you to your outcome goal, consider changing your outcome goal. After all, if you’re enjoying how you spend your time, then even if you don’t reach the outcome, at least you had fun going for it!
When you’re setting your resolutions this year, choose outcome goals you want to achieve. Then choose specific process goals that, if you meet them, will lead to your outcomes. Make sure your process goals are fun, and make sure they are leading you to your outcomes. If they aren’t choose new process goals or change the big outcomes.
Next week, we’ll discuss specific techniques for making sure you actually do what your process goals say you should.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the Get-it-Done Guy podcast, an iTunes top-10 business podcast, from 2007 to 2020. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a degree in Computer Science from MIT.
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