Toolkit: Setting and Achieving Goals (2024)

Hey Brainiacs,

Welcome to this week’s newsletter! We’re going to chat all about setting and achieving goals, broken down into 3 parts and spread across 3 newsletters. Buckle up.

ToolKit for Setting and Achieving Goals

This first part focuses on selecting our goals. In life, we often have many goals we wish to achieve, all of which compete for our time. But we only have 186 hours a week, so we must be selective about which goals get our attention, and where we give our time. We give ourselves an advantage towards achieving the goal when we choose goals that are specific, challenging, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (based on the SMART goal framework^1,2). Let’s dive in.

Section 1: Selecting the Goal

Get it All Out in the Open

Start by writing out all of your goals. Nothing is too big or too outrageous at this stage. Writing them out engages our brain and improves its connectivity, fostering deeper thoughts³.

It’s a good idea to think as long-term as you can at first, and then make smaller, more short-term goals that lead to that bigger goal. Studies show that framing our short-term actions and sub-goals as part of a larger goal improves motivation^4,5.

So, if you want to run a marathon next year, think about how much the training for that marathon will improve your health in 15 years, too. This way, your training isn’t for just one goal, but two. Vice versa, if you want to improve your long-term health, think about setting a goal of lifting 50kgs, or running a 10k.

Are These Goals Your Goals?

Once we have all of our goals out in the open, take a look inwards at yourself. Studies show that perceived goal importance is crucial in setting and achieving goals^2,6. If you don’t think the goals are important, and they don’t align with your values, it will be much more difficult to achieve them; and why would you want to anyway?

Here’s some questions to think about: Are these goals for you, or for someone else? What are your core values and do these goals align with them? What are your non-negotiables? What do you want your days to look like? Is your goal working towards your ideal day?

If you want to cross out a few goals at this stage, or even add others that align better with you, go for it.

Top Tip: An Outsiders Perspective

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Studies show that we are better at problem-solving and reasoning when we talk about ourselves in the third person⁷. It is equally useful to pretend you’re talking about a friend.

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If you’re struggling to identify your core values, then think about what a friend would say about you.

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If you’re struggling to determine if your values and goals align, pretend they are the goals and values of a friend.

Section 2: Tailoring the Goal

Specific

Through hundreds of experiments and field tests, researchers have shown that specific goals led to higher performance than general ‘do-your-best’ goals². More recent research indicates that in the case of learning-oriented goals, having a less specific goal (like ‘network with more people’) can also aid in improved performance of your specific end goal (‘get a GPA of 4.0’) and lead to more staisfaction⁸. I’d encourage you to think of one specific end goal, and some other, vaguer, shorter-term things you can achieve alongside it.

Take our marathon example: Your specific goal might be to complete the marathon on a particular day in a certain amount of time. But this might be accompanied by the goal of making more friends in the running community or running in nature more often.

Challenging

These studies also found that people put in the most effort and produce the best performance when goals are challenging². Make sure your goal is exciting and challenging. However, goal performance declined when people had a difficult goal that they felt breached their limits, so make sure it is still a goal you feel you have the skills and time to complete⁹.

Measurable and Rewarding

Your goals need to be measurable². We pursue goals because they feel rewarding, but how can you be rewarded if it is unclear if you completed the goal? It is a lot clearer that you completed a marathon (or even just tried!) then you ‘got in better shape’ or ‘improved your fitness’. Numbers and deadlines can be very helpful here. Even better if you can have sub-goals that are numbered, to both keep you on track and provide mini-rewards.

Achievable

If you want your goals to be achievable², you need to get real with how much time you have available in your schedule. Get out your calendar, digital or paper, and look at how much free time you have. Do you have enough? If not, can you make more? Or should you alter the goal?

It’s also important to think about your circadian rhythm, and when your brain and body are best suited to achieve this goal. If your goal requires you to be physically active, think about when you like to be active. Is it in the morning or afternoon? If it’s in the morning, do you have any other tasks that interfere with that? If you have to do it in the afternoon, can you reasonably sustain that? If we align the day-to-day steps required to achieve our goals with our circadian rhythm, we give ourselves just that extra bit of advantage.

An outsider's perspective can be really helpful here. Talk about your goals and your schedule as if they belong to a friend- would you tell that friend that it sounds reasonable and achievable?

Time-Bound

Without a deadline, we can procrastinate our tasks to no end. Here is where it can be helpful to have both a long-term goal, like running the marathon, and also short-term goals, like building a community of friends that run. If the novelty of running a marathon has worn off, think of the satisfaction you have found in a new community, or spending more time in nature.

Section 3: Getting ready

Your Mindset

The final check we need to do before we take our tailored, personal goals with us on the road is our mindset.

How you frame your goals and your mindset about them affects how well you can achieve them. In a study, when a task was framed as a threat, performance was significantly lower than when a task was framed as a challenge¹⁰. You need to feel that your goals are challenging, but that you can achieve them without fear. You need to feel that your goals are worthwhile even if there are setbacks, and that you have the skills to overcome them. Adopting a growth mindset can be really helpful here, especially when there is an inevitable failure¹¹. Viewing failure as a time to learn and grow, rather than as a complete end to your dreams, will help you adapt your goals and persevere.

Until next week,

Nicole x

P.S. Leave a comment with topics you want covered in future weeks, and let me know how you like the style of a 3-parter!

Toolkit: Setting and Achieving Goals (2024)

Hey Brainiacs,

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