How do you make sure you see something through to the end? Even though the obvious answer might seem to be “by staying motivated of course”… that’s not where it actually begins. So, before learning how to weave motivation into our goals so as not to have to worry about it again, let’s first see what goes into setting the right goals … the kind of goals that essentially make this possible.
3 Keys to setting the right goals for success
1. Choosing the right goals
There are countless different ways of setting the right goals and some of them are truly effective. But what we want to do today is to take the core idea away – what is it that makes them work. Because once you know that, you can adapt it to your own style.
According to NLP, neurolinguistic programming, one of the ways to look at it is that they use the head, heart, gut filter.
Let’s take for example, the world-famous Edward de Bono’s 6 thinking hats technique. In that too,
- We first listen to our head listing all the facts (white hat) all the benefits or plus points (yellow hat), and what are the risks that might crop up (black hat).
- Then we consider the heart. What possibilities can we see, new ideas, (green hat) and also how we feel about it, what our intuition is saying (red hat)… things which we sometimes can’t really justify with proofs but feel is right.
- And then comes the gut element. What seems to be the right choice having looked at the goal from every angle, considered all that is involved (blue hat). Is it going to be a yes or a no? And if it is a yes, then what’s the best way to go about it knowing all that we know now?
Because setting the right goals is about…
checking how in sync are they with –
- what we want right now,
- how we like to go about things,
- how ready are we to put in all the time and effort it demands, and
whether the goal is taking us towards or away from how we want our life to look in the long run.
And having got this level of clarity about the goal, we then maximize its chances of succeeding. We optimize the goal for success.
2. Optimizing goals for success
One of the main reasons some goals and most of the new year resolutions don’t work for many people is because they might be setting the right goals but not setting it the right way. And that makes them
- feel either that they don’t have enough time, energy, resources after a while, or
- feel that the progress is too slow and end up losing interest in it.
1. Word your goals properly –
Vague goals can sometimes do more harm than good because we can lose motivation just like that without knowing why. Like say, we set the goal, “I will earn more money this year.” But as we didn’t specify how much or how, even a small temporary bump in our earning can signal our brain that the goal is reached. And so, we can lose our motivation to work on the goal.
2. Set ‘towards’ goals –
One important thing to keep in mind is to set goals that are working towards than working away from something. Like, “I don’t want to gain any weight this year” is a working-away-from goal. It is kind of an ongoing indefinite kind of thing… always worrying whether what you are eating is going to add extra weight or not.
But, if we word the same thing like, “I will take x number of calories and run 2 miles every day this year maintaining my weight at y pounds and if it goes up, I will run 10 minutes extra daily till it comes back down”. It becomes a working towards goal and gives us something to do proactively not just wait and watch.
3. Use Edwin Locke’s theory of motivation –
What the goal in this example also has working for it, is that it is specific, measurable, time-bound, realistic, and doable…. so it has got all the ingredients of a SMART goal.
And Edwin Locke’s theory of motivation also supports this, which essentially shows that clear specific goals that feel challenging but are also realistic with a clear way to evaluate the progress and clear deadline… that kind of goal has all the ingredients to keep us motivated to keep showing up.
But, this kind of motivation is extrinsic and needs constant topping up. Sure, the different parts of the SMART goal do that work pretty well… but what can amp this up is connecting it to a more constant source… backing it up with intrinsic motivation. And this is quite logical and really simple to do.
How to succeed beyond your self limiting beliefs
3. Weaving motivation into your goals
See, sometimes we set goals with the best intention, wording it the best way we know but somehow the conviction to achieve it starts to lose steam a few steps in… other things pop up which need to handled urgently and before we know it has become one of those things that we come across doing some spring cleaning and go ….”Yeah, wow, I had absolutely forgotten about this!”
Setting the right goals doesn’t guarantee the availability of motivation every step of the way. And chunking up helps shift the source of motivation from outside factors to something inside of us.
And to know how to do that, watch the video up top.
Meet you right over there.
