If you’re like most people, you probably have a vague idea of what you’d like to achieve this year. Maybe you want to get in better shape or get more organized or save more money.
But how do you turn that vague desire into an achievable goal?
How do you figure out how organized you should get or how much money you should try to save?
When setting goals in the New Year, it can be tempting to aim really high.
There’s something about the fresh start of a new calendar that makes us feel like we can become entirely new people. We think about all the things that are possible and want to do them all.
But thinking about what’s possible to do is not always the best way to set a goal.
Because possible does not necessarily mean worthwhile.
It might be possible for you to run a marathon this year—if you trained for several hours every week. But you might not be willing to do that. It might be possible for you to make a million dollars freelancing this year—if you work 90 hours a week. But you might not be willing to do that either.
And you know what? That’s okay.
Just because we could do something doesn’t mean we have to. And just because someone else does it, doesn’t mean it’s right for us. Even if it’s something we’re interested in doing, that doesn’t mean we need to set the highest goal possible and have it consume our lives.
We first need to decide whether we want it to consume our lives.
Will your goals give you the life you want?
The thing about lofty goals is that they generally require a significant investment. They take time and effort and sometimes a lot of money to make them happen. They require sacrifice. And if we’re not willing to make the sacrifice, we probably won’t achieve them.
But that doesn’t mean that we should just make whatever sacrifices we need to in order to achieve our goals. It means we should think carefully about what sacrifices we are willing to make when we are deciding what goals to set in the first place.
When we set goals, we often focus on the outcome. We imagine what it will be like to achieve them and we gloss over the less enjoyable part—the work. But the actual work to achieve our goals will generally have a greater impact on our overall wellbeing than crossing the finish line in the end.
If we want our goals to make our lives better and not worse, we need to consider how the goal pursuit fits within the context of our lives as a whole.
Does the work required to achieve a particular goal fit with what we want our lives to look like as a whole? What will we have to give up in order to reach that goal? And is it worth it? What else could we do with that time, effort, and resources?
If we want to set goals that we actually have a shot at achieving, we need to stop thinking about what is theoretically possible and start asking ourselves what is actually possible given what we’re willing to do.
If there is nothing you’d rather be spending your time and energy working towards, then that might be a good goal. But if the time, effort, and resources required to meet a particular goal would require giving up other things that you value even more, then you might want to rethink your goal.
What if you have no idea what’s achievable or what you’d be willing and able to do? Try starting small and shortening your time frame.
If you have never run more than a mile at a time, it will be hard to know whether you would be willing and able to train for hours a week to be able to run a marathon. What if your body can’t handle it? What if you find out you don’t even like running?
Before sticking yourself with a yearlong goal that requires a massive sacrifice you’re not sure you want to make, try dipping your toe in the water and see how things go. Start with something manageable, achieve it, and then use that information to set a new goal. Start building the right habits and then see what goals are realistic based on what you are actually able to get yourself to do.
If we want to set goals that are achievable and worthwhile, we need to consider what kind of life we want to have and what kind of people we want to be and then ask ourselves: Will making space for our goal move us closer to the life we want to live?
Also published on Medium.
This bit – ‘we need to stop thinking about what is theoretically possible and start asking ourselves what is actually possible given what we’re willing to do.’ – SO GOOD!
I’m so glad this resonated with you!
This is so great in realising what goals you want to make but why we want to achieve these goals!
Setting goals that are reasonable and manageable is half the battle. Goals should be set with an intention in sight.
I agree, Anitra! It’s important that our goals fit with what we want for our lives as a whole.
I love making goals but then have a hard time following through with them.
Hi, Karen! Following through on our goals can be really hard, especially if we try to rely on our willpower to do it. If you’re interested, I have a post on following through on your goals that might be helpful: https://jenzamzow.com/how-to-follow-through-on-goals/.
Thanks to this post I will now ask myself “will making space for this goal move me closer to the life I want to live?” I am in love with this question! Last year was a big year of growth for me. Among the things I realized was wasting energy focused on things that did not move me toward my goals. I was busy trying to help everyone else.
I’m glad you found this question helpful, Laurie! It can be so easy to waste time and energy on things that don’t get us to where we really want to go!