A quick and dirty overview of how to set the right goals for yourself or for your business.  Many times, our goals are too broad, unrealistic, or are too far outside of our strategic objectives to really move us forward.  Here’s how we can set the right goals to set ourselves on the right path – immediately.

At the very beginning of every year, we start with a whole new assortment of resolutions.  Typically, we set outcome related goals such as, “I want to move to Waco, TX and be on Fixer Upper” or “I want to have started my own business by the next calendar year.”  We have a outcome in mind, but rarely think through the necessary actions we need to take to get from point A to point B.

Outcome Goals

Outcome goals are inspirational.  They can really motivate us, or really demotivate us.  We have no intermediate steps to take, so our outcome is the only thing that allows us to measure our success.  Therefore, if our goal needs to change across the year, or if everything doesn’t go exactly as planned, we will not feel as though we’ve succeeded.

Process Goals

While you’re outcome goal is a great starting point, we should always set intermediate steps as process goals that will help to get us there.  What are you going to tackle each month, week, and day to get you where you want to be.

This is also a great time to recognize whether you’ll actually enjoy the process of getting where you want to be.  If you don’t like the sound of the individual process goals, then consider changing your outcome goal all together,

Setting these process goals will also give us perfect points in time to evaluate our progress and determine if any changes need to be made.  Are you hitting your goals by the point in time you intended?  Or are you running ahead or behind what you would have expected and should try to change course?

These smaller process goals will ultimately help us to achieve our outcome goals.  And that’s a goal worth working towards.

(Image notebook source)

How to create your process goals

Picture it like this –

• Your outcome goals are your long-term goals.  Where do you want to be in 6 months to a year?
• Your process goals are your short-term goals.  What smaller steps do you want to/need to achieve?

When you set that long-term goal, brainstorm strategies that you can potentially use to get there.  For example, if you want to start a freelancing career, you could…

• Set up a 1:1 meeting with me to discuss freelancing (seriously, don’t hesitate to do this if freelancing is one of your goals)
• Contact blogs to see about guest posting on their websites
• Network with friends in the publishing industry to see if they know of any openings

From there, determine which strategy you’d like to move forward with first and make it a SMART goal.

S (Specific)

M (Measureable)

A (Attainable)

R (Relevant)

T (Time-Bound)

As an example, “I want to contact 16 blogs in four weeks with a goal of guest posting on 4 of their websites.”

From that, it’s easy to divide your new process goal into a variety of tasks that you can cross off each day.  Once those four weeks are up, you’ll know whether or not that is a good strategy for you, so that you can either continue along that path or change up strategies completely.

Remember…

Setting goals is important, but taking action is how you will get to where you want to be.  Set Process Goals to keep you on the right path.

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