Does reaching a goal make you successful? Maybe linking goals to success isn’t such a good idea. Linking goals to a successful mindset is a better avenue. Goals require planning. That planning sets out a step of actions. You won’t have to search for goals. They make themselves known.
Focus
The benefit of setting any kind of goal is that it helps you focus. Facebook and Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat. Mobile phones and laptops. Social media competes for our attention. Distraction is a result.
Your goals can be lighthouses that safely remind you of the course of action you want to take. They’re not meant to punish you if you don’t complete them. They’re reminders of what you want to be and where you want to go.
The first step of setting any kind of goal is knowing exactly what you want. That’s also where focus comes in.
The Reality Factor
Focus is the first step. Then reality needs to shape your goal. Being realistic means that you are setting goals that you know you can achieve. It’s supposed to be a bit of stretch, but it shouldn’t be impossible. Any goal you set for yourself should be achievable.
If you think it’s achievable but unlikely, it’s time to break down that goal into smaller steps.
Voila! The process of creating short-term goals to reach a long-term goal starts to happen all by itself.
Short And Sweet
Here’s the thing about short-term goals. They give you regular pings of achievement. Set them up daily and you create a momentum of “I did this” success. They prime you for the more difficult long-term goals.
Don’t make them simply for the sake of being able to check off a short-term goal as accomplished. It’s a false reward, and it belongs in the distraction category.
Long Time In The Making
If short-term goals are your stepping stones, long-term goals are the destination laid out by the path those stepping stones make. If you can envision that analogy, it’s easy to see the difference between the two types of goals. You can also see how they work in partnership.
Short-term goals tend to be specific. You’ll get this done by that time. Your long-term goals should have a general completion date – but remember that they’re being reached step by step. Things change. Long-term goals shouldn’t be rigid.
Goals are not tasks. A goal is a destination. A task is an action. Several tasks often make up a short-term goal. And several short-term goals later, you start to see the path being clearly laid out to reach that long-term goal.
Building Things
We’re kind of partial to the analogy of the stepping stones that lay out the pathway to accomplish a goal. We’ll spin that analogy a bit to demonstrate how it’s worked for us.
After over 35 years of working step by step with each customer, we’ve created a collection of dies that number well over 5,000. Each project resulting in a die was a short-term goal for us. Talk about a pathway!
Where are all those dies leading us? To more customers, of course. But the cool thing about our short-term goal successes – all 5,000+ of them – is that our customers can succeed with them, too.
