Let's talk about goal setting
Feb. 21st, 2022 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justanorthernlightI have been participating in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
journalsandplanners mini snowflake challenge and today's yesterday's prompt seemed like as good of an excuse as any to talk about goal setting, which came up quite a few times in the comments.
(Alternatively, here is a similar worksheet for focusing on one goal with more action items, and here is a third printable that can be a useful starting point for thinking a goal through before starting it.)
There is a lot of great advice elsewhere on the internet on how to set effective goals, so I'm mostly going to be talking about my own process, tips I've found useful, and my own mistakes and pitfalls.
Goals: Vague Wishes vs SMART(ER) Goals:
A lot of goals start out as vague wishes, to do more X, create Y, stop doing Z, and it's very easy to jump in without a plan of action, or (particularly for goals with 'more' or 'less' in them) an accurate way to judge whether it's been successful.
(As a side note, I don't have much experience with goals for doing less of a thing, so if you're trying to quit smoking or something I have no idea whether any of this will be useful to you.)
SMART (or sometimes SMARTER) is a goal-setting acronym that has been popular in business settings for decades. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (or Time-bounded, basically it has a deadline), with optional additions of Evaluated and Reviewed, and I think it's great for creative endeavors as well.
Let's say your vague wish version of a goal is to write more. Here are two example goals, both are specific, measurable, and relevant, but only one of them is SMART
The first is specific, measurable, and relevant, but it's not actually SMART. You might think by having the 'per day' qualifier it's timely, but per day for how long? When does this goal get achieved, or evaluated? Also, for me it's not really a sustainable goal, because the first day I write 497 words (or nothing at all), the entire thing is a failure.
500 words per day for an unspecified period of time isn't a SMART goal, it's a habit. Habits are wonderful things that can help you achieve a SMART goal, but I think it's important to recognize the difference.
Goal #2 on the other hand is specific and measurable (3 chapters, complete rough draft), relevant if your end goal is a novel (but one can adjust the desired output to match the specifics of your writing goal), possibly achievable depending on one's creative process and other demands on your time, and has a hard deadline (end of April).
At the end of April you can then evaluate and review the goal. If you finished you can set another goal (ex, editing done by the end of May, or the next 3 chapters done by the end of June).
If you were unsuccessful, it's good to reflect back and figure out why (writer's block, wrote something else, emergency came up and didn't have the time, had the time but didn't do the work), and figure out A.) if you want to try again now or in the future, and if so B.) how you can overcome these obstacles and be (more) successful next time.
I really view goal setting as an iterative process, and the original plan not working is not an automatic sign to give up (although it does sometimes lead to re-evaluating my priorities and deciding I have other, more important goals to focus on).
Sub-Goals vs Action Items vs Habits:
Now that you have a SMART goal the worksheet asks you to break it down into action items, so it's time to talk about what an action item is and isn't.
Every couple of months without fail I forget myself and put "Do yoga 3x/week" in one of my Health & Fitness action items slots and them I'm all *shocked pikachu face* when I fail.
This is not an action item, it's 12 action items hiding in a trench coat. To look at it a different way, it's a goal to accomplish four sub-goals, each comprised of 3 action items.
An action item is a specific and discrete task that must be accomplished.
To use a different example, I've set a SMART goal of trying to cook 12 new recipes by the end of 2022. So each individual recipe is an action item, right?
No, each recipe is it's own sub-goal. My action items for each sub-goal have been:
I spent most of 2021 writing my first mobile app, and going into it I approached implementing individual features as action items, but a lot of the time I wound up discovering that those were actually sub-goals, each with research, writing multiple functions, and debugging as action items.
With creative goals it can be harder to determine what is an action item and what is a sub-goal. A lot of that might come down to differences in creative process. For me writing an outline and doing research are action items, but completing a chapter is a sub-goal.
Not everything that goes into completing a goal fits neatly into an action item, and this is where using a habit like the above 500 words/day is a useful building block, but I personally have not found the establishment of a habit to be a useful goal in and of itself, if that makes sense? Because the first time I stumble with the habit the goal is ruined, kind of like how most people abandon their New Year's Resolutions before the end of January because they're already so far behind on it.
I prefer to use a habit tracker and keep it completely separate from my goal-setting stuff, and approach each day it's own set of goals with each habit I'm tracking as an action item. This keeps me from getting discouraged or beating myself up too much over bad days. Of course, this has just been what works well for me and YMMV.
If you've made it all the way to the bottom, thanks for reading and go out and make some goals!
journalsandplanners mini snowflake challenge and Today's challenge: Share a printable or tutorial that you think other people would love.I've been using this planner with extra goal planning pages for a little over a year and I really like it. It has a page at the beginning of each month with space for 9 different goals for different parts of your life, and the spaces for breaking that goal down into action items. The company also has a free printable version of this goal setting page here.
(Alternatively, here is a similar worksheet for focusing on one goal with more action items, and here is a third printable that can be a useful starting point for thinking a goal through before starting it.)
There is a lot of great advice elsewhere on the internet on how to set effective goals, so I'm mostly going to be talking about my own process, tips I've found useful, and my own mistakes and pitfalls.
Goals: Vague Wishes vs SMART(ER) Goals:
A lot of goals start out as vague wishes, to do more X, create Y, stop doing Z, and it's very easy to jump in without a plan of action, or (particularly for goals with 'more' or 'less' in them) an accurate way to judge whether it's been successful.
(As a side note, I don't have much experience with goals for doing less of a thing, so if you're trying to quit smoking or something I have no idea whether any of this will be useful to you.)
SMART (or sometimes SMARTER) is a goal-setting acronym that has been popular in business settings for decades. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (or Time-bounded, basically it has a deadline), with optional additions of Evaluated and Reviewed, and I think it's great for creative endeavors as well.
Let's say your vague wish version of a goal is to write more. Here are two example goals, both are specific, measurable, and relevant, but only one of them is SMART
- Write 500 words per day
- Finish a rough draft of 3 chapters of a novel by the end of April
The first is specific, measurable, and relevant, but it's not actually SMART. You might think by having the 'per day' qualifier it's timely, but per day for how long? When does this goal get achieved, or evaluated? Also, for me it's not really a sustainable goal, because the first day I write 497 words (or nothing at all), the entire thing is a failure.
500 words per day for an unspecified period of time isn't a SMART goal, it's a habit. Habits are wonderful things that can help you achieve a SMART goal, but I think it's important to recognize the difference.
Goal #2 on the other hand is specific and measurable (3 chapters, complete rough draft), relevant if your end goal is a novel (but one can adjust the desired output to match the specifics of your writing goal), possibly achievable depending on one's creative process and other demands on your time, and has a hard deadline (end of April).
At the end of April you can then evaluate and review the goal. If you finished you can set another goal (ex, editing done by the end of May, or the next 3 chapters done by the end of June).
If you were unsuccessful, it's good to reflect back and figure out why (writer's block, wrote something else, emergency came up and didn't have the time, had the time but didn't do the work), and figure out A.) if you want to try again now or in the future, and if so B.) how you can overcome these obstacles and be (more) successful next time.
I really view goal setting as an iterative process, and the original plan not working is not an automatic sign to give up (although it does sometimes lead to re-evaluating my priorities and deciding I have other, more important goals to focus on).
Sub-Goals vs Action Items vs Habits:
Now that you have a SMART goal the worksheet asks you to break it down into action items, so it's time to talk about what an action item is and isn't.
Every couple of months without fail I forget myself and put "Do yoga 3x/week" in one of my Health & Fitness action items slots and them I'm all *shocked pikachu face* when I fail.
This is not an action item, it's 12 action items hiding in a trench coat. To look at it a different way, it's a goal to accomplish four sub-goals, each comprised of 3 action items.
An action item is a specific and discrete task that must be accomplished.
To use a different example, I've set a SMART goal of trying to cook 12 new recipes by the end of 2022. So each individual recipe is an action item, right?
No, each recipe is it's own sub-goal. My action items for each sub-goal have been:
- Browse for recipes (online and in cookbooks), and compile a list of ones that look interesting
- Read through each of those recipes and figure out if I have the required ingredients and equipment to make it (repeat this item for as many recipes as are in that list)
- Pick the recipe I want to make
- Acquire missing ingredients and/or equipment
- Actually cook it
- Eat it and decide whether I ever want to make it again (this is the optional review phase)
I spent most of 2021 writing my first mobile app, and going into it I approached implementing individual features as action items, but a lot of the time I wound up discovering that those were actually sub-goals, each with research, writing multiple functions, and debugging as action items.
With creative goals it can be harder to determine what is an action item and what is a sub-goal. A lot of that might come down to differences in creative process. For me writing an outline and doing research are action items, but completing a chapter is a sub-goal.
Not everything that goes into completing a goal fits neatly into an action item, and this is where using a habit like the above 500 words/day is a useful building block, but I personally have not found the establishment of a habit to be a useful goal in and of itself, if that makes sense? Because the first time I stumble with the habit the goal is ruined, kind of like how most people abandon their New Year's Resolutions before the end of January because they're already so far behind on it.
I prefer to use a habit tracker and keep it completely separate from my goal-setting stuff, and approach each day it's own set of goals with each habit I'm tracking as an action item. This keeps me from getting discouraged or beating myself up too much over bad days. Of course, this has just been what works well for me and YMMV.
If you've made it all the way to the bottom, thanks for reading and go out and make some goals!
