Setting achievable goals

9 min readApr 1, 2019

Setting goals is hard. Following them is even harder. How can we do that? How can we get to the point where we want to follow our goals? How can we feel that our goals are meaningful? How can we grow? How can we check if we are getting anywhere? Let’s dig deeper and try to answer those questions.

I have been an engineering manager for a year now. Having reflected on my values, I highly value trust and I build my relationships based on that. In the last year, I’ve established a meaningful relationship with my reports. Part of that relationship development has been professional growth and setting goals we both believe in. We came up with individual development plans. We created goals which we are following on a weekly basis. My framework for goal setting consists of three main parts:

Divide goals by time range.
Set your own goals.
How to accomplish your goals?

Dividing goals by time range

I have chosen to divide goals by 3 different time ranges:

Short term goals — Weekly or every other week depending on your meeting schedule with your manager.
Medium term goals — Quarterly. I have aligned this with our company’s RIG assessment.
Long term goals — 1–2 yearly goals. Usually in the form of individual development plan/career growth plan.

Short term goals

Why do we set small short-term goals? The study shows that when people finally manage to start something, they are much more inclined to remember the task and finish it. The hard part is to start and establish a habit.

Current small goals are set on a weekly basis (every other week if you are meeting with your manager/report that often). The idea is to have a small tangible item to focus on. It should be small enough to be achievable at that time. If it’s a part of something bigger, try to make something which you can easily classify as done/not done. The goal around this is to create a habit of doing something outside of your 1 on 1 which contributes to professional development. It may seem small, but Rome was not built in a day. It takes time to establish those good habits.

If you are a manager — ask your report to set a goal for themselves for the next week. They should both set and commit to their goals for the next week. Make sure it’s easy enough that it doesn’t overburden them. Your goals should be focused on continued professional development. They should not be about finishing your tickets or doing your squad work. Doing this every time and making sure those are small and easy will create a habit out of it.

Pause the reading now and set your own goal for the next week. Make sure you write it down somewhere visible — otherwise, it’s not real.

Medium term goals

Medium term goals are ones set for a longer, but still comprehensive, timeline. I set those as 4 Monthly goals and align it with our company performance assessment. It shouldn’t be something trivial to achieve but still should be easy to measure success. Let me say it again. It has to be very easy to measure the progress and tell if you achieved the goal. These goals should require effort and some planning.

Good goals:

By the fifth of May, I’ll have read 2 books about refactoring.
By the next quarterly meeting, I’ll be watching one presentation about soft skill every week.

Those goals should help to bridge the gap between short and long term goals. They should get you closer to long term goals. At the same time, they should not be as trivial as short goals. This allows you to plan in more detail on how to achieve those.

As a manager, I set some goals based on feedback from peers. This helps with addressing shortcomings and keeping on top of current work. Moreover, I like to create a goal or two derived from long term Individual Development Plan (see below).

Long term goals

These goals should be set for the long term and you should discuss those with the manager. I would say a timeline of about 1–2 years is good. My preference is to form the long term goals as an Individual Development Plan (IDP). A good guide on how to discover your goals can be found here.

Examples:

Gold path — Vulnerable leader

Practice

Perform reverse 1:1 where you switch roles with your managers.
Managing interns.
Providing feedback to the team on a regular basis.

Knowledge

Book habit — One management book a month.
Article habit — Create a habit of reading one article per week about management.
Conferences — go to a management conference of choice.

Visibility

Sharing knowledge.
Write articles about management.
Do presentations about your experience.
Attending discussions — there are multiple management discussions which are open to everyone.

Maroon path — Public Badass

Presentation skills.

Present at internal company’s conference
Present at Engineering Chapter meeting
Watch TED talks and focus on presentation skills.

Organize meetups.

Your ideas — you will be able to present your ideas. You can organize meetup however you want.
Gather audience — you will need to build a network to make sure you reach out to the right people.

Technology blog

Company-wide — start with a small audience and gather feedback.
Medium profile — go for something visible online. Don’t be discouraged by negative comments. Find the positives.

Good long term goals should not be limited to the above. It should also include a good amount of interim ideas on how to get there. Those should help form actions which happen on a daily basis.

Setting long term goals may seem like an unnecessary burden, however, it is very valuable. Having a conversation about those goals was very useful for me. During career conversations, you may discover that there are non-obvious opportunities. Those might be different than your original goals! That’s OK! They may still fulfill your career aspiration!

Setting your own goals

Have you ever been told what to do? How did you feel? Did you feel empowered? Me neither. We want to have the power of choice and freedom. We want to feel that we can steer our own boat.

We are more likely to follow goals set by ourselves rather than ones set by others. Even when you agree with the goal but it comes from someone else you are less likely to feel accountable for doing it. That’s why it is so important to think about your own goals. When you have one — write it down. Make a contract with yourself.

“If it’s not Written Down, it Didn’t Happen”

That’s why it’s important to tell your manager your own goals during your 1 on 1. Your manager can ask you every week: “What is the thing I can hold you accountable for in the following week”. As a manager try to resist the temptation to tell your report what to do. Explain what is important to you but let your employees figure out by themselves how to achieve that.

Another important thing is to make sure you are setting your goals in a learning zone. If your goal is too easy you will not learn anything. Yes, you will still achieve something but it won’t be something that matters. On the flip side, if your goal is too hard you will either drop it half way or not start it at all. Remember:

The Challenge is only a challenge when it’s possible and yet demanding.

When making a goal for yourself, don’t be too gentle. We tend to be cautious when making the decision for ourselves. That’s why it’s important to work with your manager for mid and long term goals. Usually, a person with an outside perspective can see beyond your fears and limitations. Ask your manager to work on your goals. You may be surprised what comes up from the conversation!

Even if the goal is not set by you, you can treat it as yours. When you hear advice — accept it. Challenge it and think it through. Do your own research! Make sure it’s something you actually want to do. Don’t treat this as something that someone else told you to do. Make your own decision. Only then you will commit to it. Remember that it is better to say “no” rather than say “yes” and not to do it.

How to accomplish your goals?

There are two simple rules on how to make sure you fulfill your goals:

Follow up.
Build a habit.

How do you ensure you actually follow your goals? The easiest method is to periodically review them. Remember that you set those goals for yourself and you wanted to achieve them for a reason.

You need to create simple habits. Habits you will follow. Automatic things you will do no matter what. Consistency is key. Let me compare it to walking in the mountains. When you want to reach the summit you need to pace yourself. If you rush at the beginning, you will exhaust yourself and give up halfway through. Start slow but be constant. Step by step. Think of your goals as drops of water. One drop doesn’t change much but over time it creates a hole.

For short term goals:

At the end of your 1:1 with a manager always set a goal for yourself and tell your manager what it is.
It should be achievable and easy enough to finish before the next meeting with your manager.
Shortly after your 1:1 create an event in your calendar — that will help you with timing.
Create a slack reminder in the middle of the week to make sure you actually do it.
Don’t over commit. Start small but make sure you finish it.
Setting multiple smaller goals is more rewarding. Who doesn’t like to tick the box when something is done ;)?
Ask your manager to keep you accountable.
Make sure you don’t miss working on your goals. Consistency is more important than immediate results.

Results will come with consistency, but a result without consistency will not last.

For medium term goals:

If you have multiple medium term goals around different areas of your work, focus on one goal at a time.
Add a reminder to go through your medium term goals every other week on Monday morning.
During planning for your sprint, think about how you can work on your goals by choosing correct tickets.

For long term goals:

Print your Individual Development Plan and keep it somewhere visible.
Ask your manager to come back to your Individual Development Plan on a regular basis, to check how you are doing (monthly is enough).
Set medium term goals which you derive from your long goals.
Make them appealing by creating some graphics and colors.

What now?

I hope that by now you see that setting your own goals is not that hard. With this goal setting framework, you can achieve everything you want. A routine of creating attainable and accountable goals creates permanent habits. Don’t be afraid of goals. Having them helps you focus but the key is the actions you do to achieve them. Make sure you set your own goals and you stick to your plan.

Step by step you can achieve everything.