As a self-confessed goal-junkie, I’m always a little bit on the lookout for ways to improve my goal setting–but I didn’t think there was much more I could try.
I’ve always just taken what I know and jumped in, high on the thrill of new dreams and fresh starts.
Sure, I’d fumble or falter after a few months, but isn’t that just how goal setting goes? Was there really any practical way to improve?
As it turns out–yes!
The Missing Piece
This year my goal setting changed forever–and it all started with a simple, encouraging audiobook, and an amazing dig-deep goal planner.
It wasn’t that these things made me magically immune to failing (though that would have been something worth blogging about!).
What they did was fill in some blanks I’d been missing for years:
They taught me what to do when my progress got stuck.
3 Ways To Improve Goal Setting
As I worked toward completing my goals this year, I discovered that I needed to improve my goal setting not just at the beginning of the race, but also right in the middle, when I was overtired, discouraged, and flagging.
Here are three ways to pick yourself up when you feel like you’re falling short:
1. Pile on the Grace
When I first started setting goals, I had this shiny picture in my head of a beautiful chart, perfectly filled with completed check boxes.
Some goal-setting gurus encourage you to put pressure on keeping your momentum. They say things like:
Don’t break the chain! No excuses! Stick to it no matter what!
But the reality of life (especially life with little kids) is that sometimes we do lose momentum. We might even get completely thrown off track.
And if we’re setting out to let a missed day (or week) get us down, we’re bound for failure before we start.
Change is Hard!
In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, life moves pretty fast.
Our goals can’t pretend otherwise!
Maybe you come up on something big that needs (and deserves) an adjustment period: You move, change jobs, or have a baby.
Maybe you experience a deep loss and need time to grieve and find a new way forward.
Or maybe you just get thrown off your routine by catching a cold, or taking a week-long vacation.
Goals can’t exist in a vacuum. We’re all real, live people, and that means circumstances change and things get messy. It’s normal.
Challenge the “Faster is Better” Mentality
No matter what your momentum-shaker is, it’s going to take you some work and some time to get back into the rhythm–and that is 100% okay.
I’ve found that when I chose to be patient with myself–instead of panicking about being “behind”–getting back on track feels manageable and exciting instead of enormous and discouraging.
Beating yourself up will slow you down, but self-kindness can refuel you.
If you want to improve, goal setting has to feel good, even when it isn’t perfect.
2. Face Failure with Curiosity (Not Shame)
There were some goals in my Powersheets that I easily–even joyfully–completed almost every day. It felt amazingly gratifying to color in each box.
And then there were some that I marked, day after day, with an “incomplete” symbol: a tiny dot in the center of that day’s square.
At first, the long stretches of “incomplete”s stressed me out and discouraged me. I found myself right where I was with goals before–facing the familiar gut-punch of defeat.
But sometime around the second or third month of tracking my goals, I stopped beating myself up, and started looking at the data with curiosity.
“Why Didn’t This Work?”
The shift from shame to curiosity changed everything.
Instead of saying, “This just didn’t work,” and calling it quits, I started looking at my failures and asking myself, “Why didn’t this work?”
All the goals I’d listed were things I really wanted to achieve–so why wasn’t I getting there?
It’s Not Me, It’s You, Goal
When I stepped back and looked at the bigger picture, I started to see the patterns.
Why can’t I get into the habit of getting to bed earlier? Going to bed wasn’t as fun as staying up, so I had no good motivation to get there earlier!
Why can’t I get into the habit of brushing my daughter’s teeth regularly? Brushing her teeth wasn’t built into a regular routine, so it kept getting overlooked in the chaos of daily life.
Why did I stop tracking my daily “restful creativity” habit? Setting creativity as a goal in this season made it feel stressful instead of restful–which was the opposite effect of what I was hoping for!
When I started to understand why things didn’t work, I found I could choose to try a new approach (make going to bed more enjoyable!) or just let go (don’t force creativity!).
If you can’t get started of you fall off the wagon, let curiosity help you discover a new strategy or solution.
3. Fewer Goals = More Progress
One of the biggest surprises about tracking my goals this year was the discovery that my constant fear that I was “not doing enough” was totally off base.
I started the year with 8 big goals written down:
By the time I did my final quarterly check-in, I had pared down to just these 5:
It wasn’t because the other goals were unworthy.
It was because I simply couldn’t do it all and do it well.
Narrow Focus Fuels Progress
When I give myself a big list of goals or tasks, my brain wants to think about all of them all the time:
I get less done because I’m not committing focus to any one thing.
When I give myself a small list of things that really matter, I get more done, and the results feel bigger!
It’s counterintuitive, but it’s real: fewer goals can mean more progress.
Improving Goal Setting
As I work through my new goal planner, I’m trying harder to put these tools into practice. This year I want to:
- Set fewer, more focused goals,
- Be gentle when things get off track, and
- Keep exploring, wondering, and asking “why?” as I flounder, re-start, and take on new challenges.
Are you setting any cozy and comfortable or wild and wonderful goals this year?
I’d love to hear what you’re working on!
xo,
Jamie
p.s. Get your own Powersheets goal planner, read the book that fired up my goal-setting, or, start with a one-word goal.
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