Sharing goals will change your life
I’ve been trained to develop goals at school and goals at work, along the lines of “I want to hit a 3.85 GPA” or “this is what I will accomplish in Q3.” But until two years ago I had never stepped back and described holistically and concretely “this is the type of person I want to be.”
Ideas aren’t goals.
Of course, I had broad ideas about things I wanted to accomplish, qualities I wanted to embody, and habits I wanted to break. For example:
- I want yoga to be an important ritual in my life. Maybe I’ll do a yoga teacher training course one day.
- I’m going to try and become better at public speaking this year.
- I’m hoping to start my own company.
In retrospect, there were fleeting thoughts and wishes, defined by “want,” “try” and “hope.” There was a chance I would pursue them if the opportunity arose, but they weren’t proactive ambitions.
The main problems with my ideas were that:
- I didn’t write them down.
- I wasn’t specific about what they were and the time frame for achieving them.
- I didn’t have a system for holding myself accountable to them.
Goals are written and specific, with a mechanism for holding the goal seeker accountable for the outcomes. Businesses routinely operate off of these three basic principles. For example:
- In Q1, the marketing team owns successfully launching feature X and driving Y% user adoption, as defined by Z.
These goals are shared publicly, which gives employees momentum to achieve them. My approach to goal-setting outside of the work environment was previously a lot less rigorous. I thought writing down personal goals would be cheesy, and holding myself accountable to them would feel like work outside of work.
Goals vs. resolutions.
When my husband and I moved back to New York City after a stint on the West Coast, we felt surprisingly disoriented. New York’s culture of consumption (“dinner and drinks”) is easy to get sucked into, and we weren’t working out or pursuing hobbies as much as we wanted to. We were planning for our wedding in early 2017 and started talking more about what we each wanted to accomplish in the next year and the next five years, individually, and as a unit.
We decided to try writing down our ambitions. We intentionally didn’t call them “resolutions,” because resolutions can carry a negative connotation of deciding not to do something. Instead, we framed them as goals, positive results we would work to achieve.
Beyond career ambitions.
The first step in thinking about who we wanted to be was identifying the key areas of our lives that were most important to us. What were the the big, obvious factors that contributed to our overall happiness and sense of purpose? Here’s what we came up with, in no particular order:
- Stay close to our family
- Create a sense of community among our friends
- Develop fulfilling careers
- Stay healthy and fit
- Pursue interests outside of work
- Give back to our community
- Manage and grow savings thoughtfully
Even though a lot of our day-to-day highs and lows were shaped by how things were unfolding at work, it’s interesting that career was just one of the seven pillars we identified. Stepping back and identifying what’s important to us helped us think more broadly about our happiness.
From there, we developed 1-year and 5-year goals in each of these categories.
Here are some examples of broad 5-year goals:
- Skills (Sush): Develop a creative skill.
- Career (Mansi): Grow as a people manager to help others achieve their best.
- Family (Both): Make sure our siblings are a big part of our lives.
Here are some examples of more specific 1-year goals from 2017 and 2018:
- Skills (Sush): Learn to drive and get a driver’s license.
- Career (Mansi): Complete a public speaking course through learning & development resources.
- Family (Both): Capture the life story of our living grandparents through video.
A structured ritual.
Writing down our goals was the first half of the battle, and holding ourselves accountable was the second half. We have a standing calendar invite once a month called “Review annual goals,” designed to deliberately carve out time to see where we’re pacing for the year and where we’ll focus our energy in the coming month. We typically do it while we’re eating dinner, with our laptops in front of us. We leave the meeting with specific action items to follow up on within the next day or two (e.g., research the best driving schools in New York City).
Having another person there to talk through roadblocks and share incremental successes (like the satisfaction of crossing off a completed goal), makes the process more fun. It’s something we look forward to.
Every January 1st, we evaluate the previous year as a whole and write new goals, each year a new tab in our spreadsheet. This helps us realize the areas where we’re hitting the mark and other where we should pay more attention. For example, in 2017, we did well in Family, Career, and Volunteering, but the area where we feel short the most was Skills.
Meaningful impact.
I can’t overstate how much these written goals have changed the way we approach our life as well as enhanced our sense of purpose.
To put it quantitatively, in 2017, we achieved 17 of 25 of our goals (68%), and grew as people significantly more than we would have without them. Some of the goals we didn’t get to complete were no longer as important to us as our ambitions evolved, and others, we revisited as goals for 2018. We’ve completed 5 of 22 goals in 2018 and are in the middle of pursuing 12 of the rest.
Some of the highlights of the past two years include: helping friends and family get new jobs, completing a sprint triathlon, going vegan for a month, and joining the executive team at Minds Matter.
Wisdom of the ages.
Upon the 50th anniversary of their graduation from business school, the Harvard Business School Class of 1963 shared their advice to younger generations in 2013, through a project called If I Knew Then. One of the resounding patterns of advice among classmates was on the topic of goals. Here are a few gems:
Several years ago, a graduating class from a large, well-known business school was asked whether they had written goals, unwritten goals, or no goals. It turned out that 3 percent of the class had written goals, 13 percent had goals they had not written down, and 84 percent had no goals. At the 10th reunion, the class was asked again about their goals and accomplishments. The results showed that the 3 percent who had written goals did 10 times as well as the others, and the 13 percent who had unwritten goals did twice as well as the other 84 percent.
The ability to set goals is very valuable in achieving success. Goals should be balanced in all areas of life — family, social, spiritual, business, health, wealth, education, etc. People who have a clear picture of themselves and have set well-rounded goals tend to be much more successful than people who are vague in what they hope to accomplish in the future.
-Artie Buerk
Finding that special person whose values, goals, interests, and tenacity match yours is the greatest pleasure and satisfaction anyone can possibly have. It isn’t always easy, but the companionship and partnership produce continuing teamwork, rewards, and pleasure. Last but not least, keep your mind active through reading, travel, recreation, and — of course — goals. Having something to look forward to is very critical.
-John A. Moeller
In other words, we didn’t reinvent the wheel, but instead took some great advice and repurposed it in a way that worked for us. It’s never too late to get started!
More where this came from
This story is published in Noteworthy, where thousands come every day to learn about the people & ideas shaping the products we love.
Follow our publication to see more product & design stories featured by the Journal team.
