Goals.
At some point in our personal and professional lives, someone sat us down and asked us “what are your goals?”. It can be labeled differently, like an “objective” or “target”, however they all largely were the same. What quickly followed was an acronym for helping you set such goals, which probably was a variation of SMART (specific, measurable, action, realistic, timely). And then… that was it. You set your goal, for some distant point off in the future (be it 6 months or maybe a year) and were just expected to start working on it.
giving up on goals
The thing is, what happened in month 2 of your 6 month goal? Realizing you have 4 months of work left, and the first 2 months felt like nothing got accomplished? That goal seems so far off, and you have little to show for it. What was intentionally supposed to motivate you, is now actually having the opposite effect. And sure, at the end of the 6 months the goal might be accomplished. But if we spent the entire 6 months working towards it, feeling a sense of obligation rather than any real motivation, what was the point other than to say “welp, I did it..”? That is of course if we actually make it to the end of the 6 months. Maybe at month 3, realizing there are still 3 months to go and we have nothing to show for it, we just stop working on that goal and move onto something else.
how we used to write goals
The old process hasn’t had a good look to be improved in a while, so let’s go ahead and do that now. First and foremost, a goal must challenge us as individuals and teams to be better. If we are assigning them arbitrarily to do busy work, then it isn’t really a goal. We have to learn new skills, enhance existing ones or stretch ourselves in order to accomplish it. In other words, goals make us grow. Ensuring that goals will challenge us, but are truly attainable, can sometimes be difficult. Setting goals that are too difficult will leave us mentally drained and depressed, conversely setting goals that are too easy will leave us feeling unfulfilled. A great way to ensure that a goal will do exactly that, challenge us to be better but remain realistic, is to ask two simple questions; is this possible? And is this probable? If you are starting off at a company as a brand new employee, is it possible for you to become CEO? Sure, it is possible. Is it probable? Not really, especially if you are brand new. Is it possible and probable to become a team leader? Yes, and then you can work on whatever level is next. The intersection of possibility and probability is where we want to focus when setting goals, otherwise we are setting ourselves up for a long tumultuous journey with plenty of disappointment along the way.
step by step
It doesn’t just stop there, we need to think about how to actually keep ourselves engaged in working on our goals so that it doesn’t become a tedious process with no end in sight. When we set that goal so far off in the future, we can lose interest pretty quick. Especially if we have nothing to feel good about along the way, with the idea that we haven’t succeeded in anything until that goal is finally accomplished. We can ensure that we actually put in the work by using three types of goals: outcome goals: what we are trying to achieve overall; performance goals: the specific skills needed to complete the overall goal; and process goals: the tasks needed in order to achieve what it is we are trying to accomplish.
Outcome Goal-
This is exactly what we want to achieve, the big challenge we set out to accomplish whenever we set the goal to begin with. It is what we are driving towards and building plans to complete and sets the foundation on which the other two goal types are built.
Performance Goals-
These are the specific skillsets to develop, and the steps we need to make along the way to accomplish the Outcome goal. These goals build on each other and are what we work towards in the short term while the outcome goal remains off in the distance. We can have 2-3 of these goals overtime, giving us focus and clarity so our efforts have more meaning.
Process goals-
These are those “nitty gritty” actions, the small goals that we build on to reach performance goals. The daily or even weekly task goal that gives purpose to our training, development, and work. Rather than starting a day or week without a principle direction, process goals give something to work towards every day as we build towards those performance goals.
The intent here is to keep us engaged in the work. We aren’t staring off into the distance at the end goal that may be months or years away. Rather, we are much more focused on accomplishing something right now, and remain in the present. When we tick off the first few process goals, we have that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that we got something done. We have a regular sense that we are actually doing something and making genuine progress. The more of these process goals we complete, we get closer to the first performance goal. We can even reach it without realizing it, because our focus was in the present. When we do accomplish the performance goal, we can take that moment to reflect on how much work we have already accomplished. Realizing that success happens at every step on the way to accomplishing the outcome goal we set. This process sustains us, keeps us motivated to do the work and will ultimately enable us to reach our outcome goal. All while still feeling a sense of satisfaction in the success we have along the way.
