Setting Work Goals With These Helpful Tips Now (PsyCap 8)

Have you ever tried setting work goals and failed? Everyone has experienced this. Maybe you started out strong and kind of fizzled out. Perhaps your situation changed, and you no longer had enough time. It could be that from the start you lacked motivation and realized it was not going to work out. In this article I want to give you a guide on how to set ambitious goals so that you grow and develop!

Setting Work Goals Booster Set

The following are the twelve factors of my goal setting booster set. This approach accounts not only for the goals themselves, but also for the environment in which the goals are carried out. We often fail to reach our goals because we don’t consider pertinent environmental factors. These may include potential distractors, how much time we can actually allocate or what support we have. Furthermore, this approach to setting work goals accounts for motivational factors such as rewards and alternative pathways. I will cover these twelve factors in a brief way so that we can quickly get to the exercise! For a more in-depth view visit my post: Setting SMART Goals – You Need to Know This Beforehand.

1. Setting Work Goals That Are Meaningful

Goals should matter to you. You can frame goals to align with your core values, world view, important relationships, fundamental beliefs, attitudes, or identity. Having such goals increases commitment, motivation and thereby the probability of success.

2. Setting Work Goals That Are Ambitious

Goals should be set in such a way that they help you to develop. Ambitious goals push you outside of your comfort zone and cause you to go beyond what you thought was possible. When you have ambitious goals, you may not reach them 100%. This is ok! By going beyond, you will truly be able to grow personally and professionally, innovate and discover new approaches. This is the real success.

3. Define Subgoals

Some goals seem hard to approach and even insurmountable. Try breaking down the large goal into smaller subgoals. By doing this, your goal suddenly becomes more manageable. Before you were stressed even at the thought of trying, but now you are motivated to proceed just one step at a time.

4. When Setting Work Goals Identify Needed Resources

I believe many people fail at goal achievement, because they do not take enough time to consider what resources are needed. Doing this can save you a lot of hassle in the future. If you build a house, you need to plan how much material your need. It is the same with goal achievement. Do you need a certain amount of money? Do you need to acquire new skills? To reach this goal, how much time do you realistically need?

5. How Do You Know if Your Goals are Met?

Not all goals are measurable, but you should still know once you have met your goal. Without an anchor, it is easy to float around aimlessly. A critical question is, “how do I know if I am making progress?”

6. Work with Deadlines

I advocate working with deadlines. This creates positive pressure and helps keep you on track. Knowing when things need to be done will help you manage your time more effectively. I don’t think iron clad deadlines are always beneficial – it is ok to adjust the timeline as needed. However, if you don’t make regular progress, your motivation will eventually dive.

7. Identify Your Support Network

We don’t live in a vacuum. We interact with people and our environment. Identify those who can support you in reaching your goals. They can also give you valuable feedback which is crucial for motivation.

8. When Setting Work Goals Identify Potential Barriers

What are things in your environment that could hinder your from reaching your goal? For example, if you need to work on something in a concentrated way, having your phone near you is a bad idea.

Are there competing goals that make it unlikely for you to succeed. For example, if you would like to take on more responsibility at work, but at the same time don’t want to sacrifice family time, you could run into a big problem. In this case, you would have to carefully consider if it’s possible to rearrange your schedule so that both pursuits are reconcilable.

It is also advantageous to consider mental barriers that could arise and counter these. For example:

Mental Barrier	Positive Self-Talk
I must execute perfectly.	I don’t need to do everything perfectly, the main thing is to just start. I don’t need to have an all or nothing approach. Just starting is already a success.
What if I fail. / I will fail.	It’s not possible to fail. No matter what happens I will learn something and grow. Also there are many times when I was successful in the past. This shows I am not a failure.
I am not motivated and just can’t start.	What is the smallest action I can take to begin this journey. I will just do that and keep going.
I should be doing better.	I don’t need to put myself under so much pressure. I’m making progress and that’s something to be proud of. When things don’t go as planned it’s ok to learn and readjust. I won’t beat myself up because of it.

Here are some other articles I’ve publised that are helpful for dealing with unproductive thoughts and beliefs:

• Reframing how you think about challenging situations to be energized and bring about positive change
• Identifying limiting beliefs you may not even know you have and countering them
• Developing confidence in your ability to reach your goals
• List of common negative thinking patterns and how to counter them

9. Identify Alternative Pathways

When setting goals, we might assume from the outset that everything will go well. We should not fundamentally believe that problems will arise, but we should be prepared. Even after you’ve shaped your environment to work for you, you may still need to implement “plan B” to reach you goal.

For example, let’s say you’re on track to become team lead, but due to internal resturcturing this is no longer an option. What are alternative ways that you could go about reaching your goal? In such as case, you may need to change departments or find an opportunity at another company.

10. Make Your Goals Transparent

Some goals should remain private, but in most cases making your goals public can be extremely helpful. This keeps you accountable by generating a positive social pressure. Furthermore, making your goals public invites the help of others who would like to support you in your endeavors.

11. Revisit Your Goals Regularly

Even things that are important to us may become dim in our consciousness, especially when there is so much to do. Because our schedules are so packed, the goals we have may end up in the land of forgetfulness. It is important to regularly revisit your goals. Visualize yourself reaching your goals and successfully completing every step necessary to get there.

12. Reward Yourself

If someone wanted to do something nice for you, what would it be? It is important to reward yourself for making progress. These can be small things like a nice bath or ordering your favorite meal. Doing this will help keep you motivated and add to the fun factor of goal pursuit.

Setting Work Goals Exercise

With the following exercise we incorporate the most effective goal setting elements to help you succeed in reaching your targets!

Facilitators

1.) What is something meaningful to you that you would like to accomplish?

2.) Is this goal ambitious enough? Will you feel a sense of accomplishment upon reaching this goal? If so, great! If not, let’s try to step out of our comfort zone and adjust the goal a little bit. The goal should help us to grow personally.

3.) Let’s formulate this goal as clearly and concisely as possible.

4.) How will you know if you have achieved your goal or not? What are ways to measure your progress and success?

5.) By when do you want to reach your goal? What is a realistic deadline? It’s ok to adjust when needed.

6.) Let’s divide up your goal into subgoals. What are the key milestones? For this exercise I work with four subgoals, but this can be adjusted as needed. What are realistic deadlines?

Subgoal	Deadline
1.	1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.

7.) What resources do you need to reach your subgoals? For example, do you need to acquire new skills or purchase new equipment?

Subgoal	Necessary Resources
1.	1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.

8.) Who can help you to achieve this goal? What support do you have? Identify your support network and write down what they can/will do?

9.) Who will you communicate your goals to and when? This will of course include those in your support network. How often and when will you discuss your progress with this person?

1. Who will you communicate with about your goals:

2. When will you tell them about your plan?:

3. How often and when will you discuss your progress?:

Distractors

10.) What are potential distractions, barriers or scenarios that could stop you from reaching your goal? How would you deal with these? What are alternative pathways towards goal achievement should something unexpected or undesirable happen?

Distractor	Solution / Alternative Pathway
1.	1.
2.	2.
3.	3.
4.	4.

Rewards for Reaching Goals

11.) How will you reward yourself for reaching your subgoals and overall goal?

Subgoal

1.

2.

3.

4.

Overall Goal

1.

Visualization

12.) When will you revisit your goals? Set aside 10 minutes a week or more as necessary to reflect on your progress and imagine yourself reaching your goals.

Post this sheet somewhere where you will see it regularly. It is important that your goals remain present and prominent. This should not be a negative stress factor but help you to stay focused. Many people fail to reach their goals simply because they gradually forget about them. It is easy to become distracted with matters that seem more pressing at the time.

Summary

In this article we learned the most important things to consider when setting goals. By using the 12-factor booster set, you will succeed in your endeavor. This approach not only accounts for the goals themselves, but also the environment in which the goals are carried out.

Furthermore, it incorporates factors that keep you motivated and help you make steady progress. Most importantly, using this simple guide will help you set goals that cause you to grow personally. It takes some time to thoughtfully consider every aspect, but in the end it will be worth it. Success is your most likely outcome, so don’t lose time. Get started today!