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It’s the time of year to set goals. The process can be straightforward or complicated, depending on the individual and the situation. But there’s always one underlying question: how do you ensure that you are setting effective ones?
Learn from the past. In most goal-setting practices, you review your past goals focused on what you accomplished and what you didn’t. But do you examine why? Ask yourself these questions:
· What were the forces that supported reaching past goals? How do you harness or amplify them for the future?
· What constrained you from reaching goals? How do you minimize or eliminate those constraints in the coming year?
Look at the big picture. Not just 12 months – but what are you trying to accomplish in three years, in five years? How do you set goals this year that gain ground on the longer-term rewards you are seeking?
Improve your strategic thinking skills, suggests Nina Bowman. What are the most significant trends and drivers in your industry? How will you stay current and how will you connect with your industry peers? One specific question to ask yourself, she says, is “How do I broaden what I consider?”
Understanding the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of the goals will help you set better goals and will also keep you motivated. Research shows that “Goals should also, whenever possible, trigger intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, motivation. An activity is intrinsically motivated when it’s seen as its own end; it’s extrinsically motivated when it’s seen as serving a different, ulterior purpose — earning you a reward or allowing you to avoid punishment. Intrinsic motivations predict achievement and success better than extrinsic ones do.”
Manage your time. It’s the scarcest resource we have, yet one that few are proficient in using. Time management guru Laura Vanderkam recommends a time-tracking method that is particularly useful once you commit to the task. For instance, a time review showed a “minor” job, estimated at 24 hours, took closer to 40 hours over a year. That’s a week (or the better part of one) and the tracker found a way to outsource the task.
Task switching is another significant productivity drain. Recent estimates are that you can lose up to 40% of your productivity if you are multi-tasking. The benefit of multi-tasking is a myth, and task switching takes more time and produces more errors than focusing on a single job. Even if you don’t track your time according to Vanderkam, try scheduling more single-focus time commitments and notice what happens to your productivity.
Be proactive about your development. Are you setting personal goals as well as professional ones? What skills do you want to have in three to seven years? What can you do this year to build a foundation for the “future you?” Can you take on new assignments, foundational courses, read new books — or expand your network in this area? Nina Zipkin suggests 50 personal goals to consider in categories including money, work-life balance, and personal branding.
Realize that it’s not pass/fail. Set goals that allow you to learn regardless of the outcome and understand that learning is success in its own way. As Ron Carucci outlines in his article “How to Actually Encourage Employee Accountability,”
”If leaders believed that falling short of a goal still had merit, it could radically alter how people treat their own — and others’ — mistakes.” He quotes Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s Chief People Officer:
“Being open about failure helps us balance a growth mindset with accountability. We are learning not just to reward success, but also reward people who fell short while getting us closer. We want it to be acceptable to say, ’I don’t know, but I will find out.’ Learning from our mistakes gets us closer to our desired results — that’s a new form of accountability for us.”
Don’t overlook the opportunity to improve your goal setting. As the highly prolific and successful Pablo Picasso said, “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
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December 28, 2020 at 10:00PM
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New Year, New Effective Goal Setting Strategies - Forbes
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