3 Mistakes People Are Making When Setting Goals

What's wrong with setting goals?
Your chances of achieving your goals are 42% higher by writing them down. (Research by the University of Dominica)… but I'm sure most of you realize that writing down your goals doesn't mean achieving them.

The first step to achieving your goal is to identify what is holding you back from achieving your goal. For context, I've helped over 170 people set goals in the last month, and when I see people struggling, it's usually for three reasons.

Avoid These 3 Mistakes When Goal Setting:

Mistake #1: Your goal is too vague

For example, a lot of Moms have a goal that sounds like, “I want time for myself.” Dont get me wrong, its a great goal but how will you know you achieved it? Is 10 extra seconds to yourself a success? To make it more specific it should sound something like…“I want 30 minutes for myself at 8 am MF starting June 1st, 2022, or I want one hour for myself at 7 pm MF starting June 1st, 2022.”

Mistake #2: You set your goals too high

I have definitely fallen into this bucket too many times to admit. I had to learn the hard way that setting massive goals can become extremely stressful. They either force you to put all your energy into that one goal and other more important areas suffer, or they can prevent you from creating important momentum. Setting goals low so they can be easily achieved early on is key to goal setting; It was IBM's quota strategy that helped its salespeople outperform everyone else.

Mistake #3: Your goals lack personal meaning

Often people turn their goal into something that should really become their habit. For example, "I will put the phone in my room between 95 and MF starting June 1, 2022." This may be an energizing habit, but it's not your goal because it's not inspiring. Your goals should reflect what your habits help you accomplish. Your goal might be… "I want to develop my self-discipline so that MF I can be in my meetings without picking up the phone."