How to set goals & create a vision for your future.

Goals are what our desires become when we set deadlines to them to make them a reality.

To feel like you’re moving forward and making adequate progress in life, it’s crucial that the goals you commit to pursuing play a part in driving you toward accomplishing a greater vision for your life as a whole. Setting and achieving healthy goals is essential to our wellbeing and happiness. Striving towards realistic goals demonstrates that you’re the boss of your life and that life isn’t the boss of you. Whilst you may prioritise the practicalities of achieving goals over everything else, visualising a goal is more important than having all the answers. The first stage in the construction of a house is its blueprints that show the end vision of what the house will eventually look like. Without a blueprint, it will be impossible for those building the house to know what the end product should look like. If you don’t have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish in life, you can end up spending years going around in circles committing to things that you don’t care about and becoming frustrated with life. People who aren’t actively working towards a goal or a vision in life will often experience life as being meaningless and directionless. The great news is that life doesn’t have to be this way! Although many people assume that getting a vision for their future will be a challenging and time-consuming process, it isn’t. A meaningful vision for your future can be as simple as making a difference in the life of one other person or it could be impacting the world on an enormous scale and everything in- between. 

 

The first step of goal setting is to define your vision and take full responsibility for what you want to achieve. This vision cannot be what you think other people want you to do or even what you ‘think’ is just a good idea. It’s important to understand that ‘good ideas’ do not come from the same place as meaningful visions. Ideas come from our head and visions come from our heart. The vision and goals that you develop for your future cannot be what other people want or expect from you because the purpose here is not to please others but to find something that will motivate you for the rest of your life (or for the next couple of years at least). If you don’t have a vision for your future, visualise your life five years from now: what would the best case scenario look like to you? Doing this should give you a starting point for defining one or two goals at least. If you want to succeed with goal setting, you need to define the most important goals you have for each area of your life. Without having a set of targets in life that inspire you, you won’t have much clarity of focus and direction for your future. Goal setting allows you to take control of your life’s direction and also provides you with a benchmark that can be used to determine whether you’re making progress towards these goals or not. Firstly though, to accomplish any goal in life, you need to know how to set a goal. Goal setting is a process which starts with careful consideration of what you genuinely want to achieve. The part of the goal-setting process most people don’t like is the hard work required for the goals to be accomplished. However, it is worth remembering that hard work only feels very hard when it doesn’t inspire you.

 

When you set goals for yourself, it’s crucial that they inspire you. Your goals should strive to positively benefit the world in some way in areas which are important to you. If your goals are small, uninspiring and irrelevant to anyone’s quality of life, the chances of you investing time into making them happen are slim. Genuine inspiration is the key principle behind successful goal setting. It’s important to set goals that are in alignment with your top priorities in life. If you don’t have this degree of focus, you stand the risk of feeling overwhelmed by them and not even knowing where to start. Achieving goals requires commitment, patience and perseverance – and if you lack any of these elements, your chances of fulfilling your goals are limited. So, to maximise your chances of achieving goal success, remember to make sure that your goals are both inspiring and relevant to you. Ask yourself, “If I were to share my goal with other people, would they see my goals as being significant and meaningful, or selfish and small?” How you answer this question will  determine whether your goals are actually worth pursuing or whether they aren’t!

 

What is smart goal setting?

SMART goal setting is where we critique and analyse our best intentions so that we can become more effective and start making progress.

 

SPECIFIC

We first have to ask ourselves the following questions about our visions: what, how and why. All of us start at the beginning with at least one of these known: we may know what we want to do, but we don’t know how to do it or even why we want to do it; or we may know why we want to do something but we may not know what to do about it or even how to. So many of us get trapped in doing something for the sake of doing something or keeping ourselves busy just to feel we’re being busy. Without a ‘why’, you will lack motivation; without a ‘how’, you will lack momentum and without a ‘what’ you will lack direction.

 

MEASURABLE

Once we know why we are pursuing what we’re pursuing and how and what we’re doing, we need to be able to measure the goal and our progress towards it. Realistically, we can only ever measure a goal as we see examples of our impact taking effect. When determining the measurability of a goal we need to ask the following: What are your short-term, medium and long term goals? What are the milestones you’re aiming for and how will you know when you get there? How are you going to know when you start to make progress or make a difference?

 

ACHIEVABLE

We also need to check in on ourselves about whether or not our goals are realistically achievable. Whilst it’s good to have challenging goals, they need to be practical and pragmatic. If you set goals that are unachievable and spend years pursuing this goal, you will be less open to pursuing more achievable goals because you will assume what you have pushed yourself through (and failed at) is the standard experience for all goals you set yourself.

 

RESULTS FOCUSED

Results focused goals are dependent upon their relevance to you. Only you can decide whether or not what you’re striving for genuinely matters to you and also aligns with other goals you’re pursuing. You will also need to ensure with a results focused mindset that you are measuring your progress in terms of outcomes rather than activities. 

 

TIME-BOUND

Goals should be confined to a time limit which creates a sense of urgency. Time is money, so the last thing we should be encouraging us to do is waste it or treat it lightly. Keep Yourself accountable to your time-frames and boost your morale when you hit goals.  However, it’s important to keep time limits flexible and realistic as too much pressure can jeopardies productivity and cause a lot of stress and panic.

 

How does goal setting with a growth mindset differ from regular goal setting?

Goal setting with a growth mindset is centered around believing you can improve many areas of your life. When you have a growth mindset you believe that you can make significant changes with enough effort and determination, even in areas where you are not “naturally gifted”. A growth mindset is about becoming the person you would like to be. It’s focused on making a positive long-term change in your life.  

 

What’s the Difference Between Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset?

Fixed mindset people: believe that there is little that they can control. They are simply bad at sports, unorganized, a screw-up, etc. believe that traits are fixed. Some people are smart and others are not. are afraid of failure and they feel defined by past failures. focus on things that they can’t control, like events in the past, make excuses and blame others.

Growth mindset people: believe they can change their attributes. They believe that with hard work they can better shape their habits. They are constantly working to improve, focus on the things they can control. aren’t terrified of failure and they aren’t defined by their past failures. They like taking on challenges and believe they can be successful with enough practice. are looking to make long term changes. Love to learn. Even if you have a fixed mindset, you can change to a growth mindset. It’s simply a matter of viewing your life events and setbacks differently.

 

The wellness wheel

A great way to focus on your goal setting, to do-lists, daily, weekly & monthly intentions is to use the wellness wheel. I will describe this now. The wheel of wellness consists of 8 pillars: Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, Social, Environmental, Occupational and Financial. 

 

1 Physical – this represents our physical body, need for movement, nutrition & rest. Do you engage in physical activity often? Do you wake up rested? Do you get regular physical exercise? Do you get a good amount of sleep? Do you practice good hygiene and self-care? 

 

2 Emotional – represents our psychological well being, our ability to manage the challenges of life, feel fulfilment, emotional intelligence, and emotional regulation. Do you express your feelings appropriately?Are you able to recognise your feelings? Can you recognise the stressors in your life and know how to deal with them? Do you engage in relaxation and stress management / coping techniques? Do you allow yourself to feel your emotions? Are you able to adapt to change without stress or worry?

 

3 Social – refers to our sense of belonging, connection, support within our relationship circles. Do you nurture your relationships? Do you effectively communicate with others? Do you engage in nonviolent communication with others? Do you interact with individuals of different backgrounds, cultures, ethnicities, races and beliefs? Do you participate in social activities? 

 

4 Environmental – refers mainly to the immediate environment, which serves as the backdrop for our lives (i.e. home life and work place) but can represent the greater environment we occupy (i.e. community).  Do you care and respect your environment and surroundings? Is your space cluttered or decluttered? Does your space support your overall well-being? Do you recognise the impact of your actions and behaviours to the environment? 

 

5 Occupational – this refers to the sense of fulfilment one gets from work. Do I enjoy the work that I do? Are you overworking? Do you have the ability to clock-out? Are you able to manage the stress and challenges of your work effectively?

 

6 Financial – refers to our degree of contentment with our financial resources, which impact our sense of security. Do you have a financial plan for the future? Do you feel comfortable with your money? What is your relationship with money?

 

7 Spiritual – this can refer to the individual’s greater sense of connectedness in the world, or the ability to feel purposeful and attribute meaning to life in the big picture. Do you feel fulfilled about your life? Do you practise gratitude? And feel grateful? What are your values and beliefs? And are your actions a reflection of them? Do you engage in any type of growth work? Inner work?  Do you feel connected to yourself? Others? And a higher force?

 

8 Intellectual – refers to our creative outlets, ability to take on challenges that expand our knowledge and skills. Do you listen and consider other perspectives? Are you curious? Do you seek to learn and develop new skills? Are you seeking challenges? Do you engage in personal development activities?  Do you engage in leisure activities that bring out your creativity? 

 

Why you shouldn’t tie your happiness to goals

A big mistake a lot of us make is tying our happiness to goals, and attaining the ‘I’ll be happy when…’ mindset. For example: I’ll be happy when I get a new job. I’ll be happy when I find the love of my life. I’ll be happy when I finish college. I’ll be happy when I get my dream house. I’ll be happy when I move away. I’ll be happy when a promotion.

 

This mentality makes it almost impossible to ever be happy in the present or be grateful for where you are in your life and what you have achieved so far. Not only that, but you lose all power and control over your own happiness and you give it to materialistic things, people, and places. Don’t get me wrong, the feeling when you achieve a goal or get somewhere you want to be is amazing; feelings of joy, pride and accomplishment. I’m not saying you won’t find happiness in achieving your goals, you will. But you are fooling yourself if you think that happiness is going to be long-lasting. Because no matter how big the goal you’ve achieved, or how amazing your life is when you get there, you’re subconsiously already chasing what’s next.

 

I’m not saying don’t set yourself goals. I have huge goals, in all areas of my life. I like to dream big and I love having something to work towards. But my happiness is not tied to achieving those goals. I am happy in the now, with what I have in this present moment, while working toward my vision for the future. We shouldn’t do things so we can be happy. We should be happy so we can do things. The sad thing about society today is that we are too busy focusing and worrying about the future, we don’t give ourselves the time to reflect on the progress we have already made or how far we’ve come. Maybe you’ve passed your driving test, gotten the job of your dreams, started or finished your college course, met the love of your life, moved out of home. Take some time now to plan out your goals using the wellness wheel.