Goal setting is a tool that many people use throughout their lives, both personally and professionally. The most common form of goal setting is the New Year's resolution, where people start the year by claiming they’ll do something, stop something, or have something by the end of the year. While this approach to goal setting isn’t inherently flawed, New Year's resolutions have gained the reputation of being goals that aren’t achieved. Here’s how to make your goal achievable, whether it's a New Year's resolution or otherwise.

What Makes A Goal Achievable

To start, it’s important to identify what makes a goal achievable. Often, this doesn’t even concern the goal itself; any goal can be achievable given the right approach. In other words, the approach is what makes the goal achievable, not the goal itself.

Setting Realistic Expectations

As much as any goal is possible given enough time and determination, life is messy. Things pop up that need to be dealt with and life can twist and turn in unexpected ways. Thus, keeping your goals moderate and measurable is the key to success. Instead of saying that you’ll run the company by the end of 2025, maybe say that you’ll run the department. Instead of saying that you’ll never touch sugar again, say that you’ll stop ordering a drink when you eat out. These little steps, while maybe not your end goal, are the parts of the process that make your end goal achievable. Just a little bit every day can be all it takes to find success.

Method For Goal Setting

Once you’ve identified a realistic goal, it can often feel like that’s the end of the process. You’ve got your goal, right? All you need to do now is go out and do it! While this type of improvisation works for some, the vast majority of us need to think a little bit longer on the subject before we’re finished with the goal setting process. There are a few things everyone can do to turn their ideas into achievements.

Find Your Why

The very first step in achieving your goal is identifying your purpose. Why do you want to achieve this goal? Do you want that promotion to be able to provide for others? Do you want to land your dream job? Do you want to pay off your car to gain financial freedom? There are great reasons to push for any goal, but having your specific motivation in mind will be your guiding light as you progress toward your objectives.

Break It Down

As previously mentioned, smaller goals are much easier to achieve. Breaking your goal down into its composite parts will allow you to identify your steps to success and your progress markers. If you want to land your dream job, it’s easy to say that you should just spend every weekend shooting resumes at postings you find on Indeed and LinkedIn. A better use of your time might be to consider areas where your dream job is in high demand. Maybe the next step would be to tailor your resume for those positions. Instead of sending applications to random job listings, you might make a post to your connections letting people know to keep you in mind for that type of work. This type of goal assessment is the key to turning a big goal into a series of achievable steps.

Set A Timeline

As nice as it is to have great motivation, it’s hard to ensure that everything is getting done without a timeline in place. Sometimes, the timeline for your goals will be simple. If I’m paying off my car by the end of the year, my timeline might just be twelve monthly payments that add up to the remaining balance. On the other hand, your goal might need a bit more help. If your goal is to be promoted, for example, your timeline will likely be much more involved. You’ll need to set time to identify areas where you can improve and have certain achievements at work completed before certain months. The key, whether you have a few moving parts or many, is to do a little bit every day. This phrase has gone around the internet time and time again, but it holds true. Consistency is key. If you’re working towards a goal, the best thing you can do for yourself is a little bit each day. It doesn’t have to be the same amount of work every day. It could be anywhere from an eight-hour event that shows you’re ready to be promoted or a five-minute reflection considering how you might answer a question about your weaknesses on the job. The small things truly do add up.

Stay Accountable

Accountability goes hand in hand with working from a timeline. It’s easy to deviate when there are numerous small steps. Skipping a day and making up for it the next is fine on occasion but often becomes a slippery slope where you stop working towards your goal. To combat this, try to stay accountable. People find success with accountability from different places, whether it’s a friend reminding you to do it, a daily journal, or even an alarm on your phone. Find what works for you, but remember to stick to your plan.

Celebrate Achievement

A final and often overlooked step is to acknowledge the small things. When you celebrate the next step, you remind yourself of your purpose and how much closer you are to achieving it. Acknowledge that, while you haven’t yet earned the promotion or gotten the job, you’ve done much to set yourself up for reaching those goals, and that’s something to be celebrated. Additionally, using your timeline to figure out when to celebrate the progress you’ve made is a great way to stay accountable and stick with it.

Review And Reflect

You’ve done it! You’ve completed the goal! Congratulations! What next? The final and arguably most crucial step of the goal setting process is the reflection at the end. When you accomplish a goal, you change something about yourself or your situation. Sit in that. Reflect on it. You are fundamentally different in some way from the person who set out to achieve that goal. Acknowledge the difference, and think about what accomplishing this goal means to you. It is through this process of reflecting on ourselves and reviewing what we’ve done that we gain closure on our goal. Only with this closure can we set our sights on the next achievement.

Set New Goals

The hard part about finishing the goal is staying motivated after your accomplishment. In order to maintain your goals and continue building to your purpose, it’s important that you identify another goal to work towards. Remember that this goal doesn’t necessarily need to be towards the same purpose. Maybe now that you landed your dream job your goal will be to read one book each month. Maybe now that you cut your sugar intake your next goal is going to be spending more time with friends and family. Maybe you’ve paid off that car and are ready to use it to get to a new job and a new opportunity. Premier Talent Partners has a team of dedicated professionals ready to help you with that next step. When you’re looking for a job, you can be sure that working with Premier will grant you access to people with knowledge of what goes on in the industry. Learn more about how our team is ready to help you take your next step.