This Is The Biggest Mistake People Make When Setting Goals
When I ran my first half marathon I was lucky. I started training 6 months before the event and was mentored by experienced runners. I learnt about the importance of a training plan and how to break a big distance into small achievable milestones. In the end, race day was a celebration. I completed the course and hit the time I wanted to. Going from never running more than a few miles to finishing the race was a turning point in my personal development.
Along the way, I realised that I was picking up essential skills for other areas of my life. What most people don’t realise is that goal setting is a skill that you have to learn. There are wrong ways and there are right ways. It’s easy to fall into the trap of setting bad goals and not planning how you’ll get there.
The single most important tactic to ensure you achieve your goals is this:
Give each goal a fixed date by which it must be completed.
It sounds simple, so let me explain.
Set a date for when you want to complete your goal
The most important thing you can do when setting a goal is to give it an endpoint. Open your calendar and add a date for when you want to achieve your goal now.
Without a date to work towards, you are just dreaming and not doing.
Imagine if I had decided to run a half marathon but didn’t say when I’d do it. It possible I still would have run one, but when? In 6 months time? A year? 2 years? When you set a date you create urgency. You provide the pressure necessary to get moving and start making things happen.
The date can be flexible. In fact, a realistic view means sometimes things have to change. The point is to create commitment because commitment drives action.
Break down each individual step
A marathon is no easy task. Neither is a half marathon. If you’ve never run before then you need to build up to such a distance. You do that by following an incremental training plan that adds more experience, stamina and skill over time.
By planning out the steps required to achieve any goal you do two things:
- Make it tangible. Each task is laid out before so you’re able to see the commitment the goal requires.
- Create small milestones. These are important because they spur you on towards larger success. When you’re able to run 5 miles you gain the confidence to tackle 8. And so on.
Commit or be brutally honest with yourself
Now you’ve got a goal, an endpoint and a step by step plan to achieve it. The final thing to do is execute. This is where you realise if it’s a goal you actually want or if it’s just something that sounds nice.
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes executing is hard. When I’ve trained for races there are days when my legs ache, it’s raining and I’m tired. It would be easier not to go out and run. If I’m not willing to run regularly enough, I won’t be able to achieve my goal. But because I understand the bigger picture, I know how each run contributes to the final outcome.
I’ve trained successfully for races and hit my targets. I’ve also planned to train for races and had to be brutally honest with myself and quit when I’ve failed to execute.
Knowing the difference is important.
Aim, plan, execute
This is how elite athletes win races. It’s how Fortune 500 CEOs stay at the top of their game. It’s how the most cutting-edge creatives stay ahead. It’s a simple foundation for success and it works.
It all starts with giving your self an endpoint to aim for and then working backwards. Do this with every one of your big goals and I can guarantee that you’ll start to achieve bigger and more often.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 297,332+ people.
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