Happy New Year to all of our fantastic readers! As amazing as 2014 was for us here at the Eritrean Diaspora Network, we are even more excited to see what 2015 has in store!
Many people take the New Year as an opportunity to reflect on their past twelve months, and to create a list of what they want to accomplish over the next twelve. The folks in the Eritrean Diaspora Network Professional Development group are no different; we have been crafting our personal and professional resolutions in preparation for 2015.
Along the way, we’ve been sharing with each other some of the goal setting best practices that we’ve picked up throughout the years. Some of the achievements we’ve each been most proud of individually began with goals that had a few key characteristics in common. We hope that by sharing these with our readers that everyone can incorporate some of these ideas into your goals for the New Year!
And with that, our Top 3 Best Practices for Goal Setting:
- Make sure your motivation is sound.
- As with all things in life, if the motivations behind your action are out of whack then your goal is likely to go unfulfilled. People often underestimate the importance of the “reflection” half of goal setting. Take the time to be honest with yourself, and find out what genuinely motivates you in life. Whether it be family, advancing your career, or leading a more fulfilling personal life, being honest about your true motivators will allow you to set goals that you know you’ll be excited to achieve.
- Find a way to incorporate your intrinsic motivators into your goals. First step is making sure you know what these motivators are.
- Break down long term goals into short term ones.
- Another reason why many New Years Resolutions go unfulfilled? They are too lofty and ambiguous to be held accountable to every day. If your goal is to lose 25 pounds over the year, set monthly and weekly goals for yourself, so that each and every day you can make a difference towards the incremental goals, and in turn your overall goal.
- Let’s say your target is to get into graduate school. Break down the application process into each step that you would have to take along the way. Taking the GRE/LSAT/MCAT/etc, getting your recommendations in order, boosting your resume – all of these items are steps towards the ultimate goal. By breaking the task down into its subtasks, and then setting completion targets for each subtask, you will be less likely to procrastinate and backslide.
- Large, ambitious goals are great and admirable. But if you don’t hold yourself accountable to the short term steps along the way, you are much less likely to find success.
- Be flexible.
- The nature of ambitious goal setting is that every once in a while you will be unable to accomplish them. But, if you’ve taken care of making sure that your motivation is in the right place, and you’ve made incremental progress along the way, you will be in a much better place to exercise the third characteristic of good goals: flexibility.
- When you are setting goals aligned with your life’s motivations, the alternatives to not achieving that Number 1 goal of yours are much more appealing. For example, if you’ve determined that helping your family to prosper is your largest motivator (as opposed to, say, making a ton of money), and your goal is to get your dream job as the way to make that happen, then even if you have to settle for your number two choice your motivation is still in line.
- Likewise, if you broke down that dream job goal into its many subtasks (networking with people in your desired industry, improving your resume, practicing your interview skills, etc), and were faithful in knocking those out along the way, then you’re in a much better position to still be an attractive candidate for other opportunities.
So, in short, find your motivators, set goals with multiple short term tasks, and be flexible and rebound in case you fall short. These rules have worked for us in our lives and careers. If you have any more to share, please leave them in the comments!