Setting goals for a productive 2025
You probably have a hard time juggling the demands in your life, or maybe you are feeling stressed and frustrated that you can’t achieve more in the 24 hours each day gives you. Rest assured you are not alone. Most people complain of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Life today is busier than ever before. We are constantly connected and expected to respond to too many types of communication instantly. The rate of global data-doubling is increasing each day and, somehow, we need to stay focused and productive in the midst of all this.
You will be pleased to know that it is possible. That it is realistic to be calm, organised and in control of your workload and your life. But where to begin? In my experience, getting organised starts with effective goal-setting, because clarity generally precedes progress. Having clear goals gives you direction when you lack energy and motivation.
BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND
The late Stephen Covey, author of the popular book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, coined the phrase “begin with the end in mind.” If you want to make the best use of your time, you must know what you are attempting to achieve before you set out to achieve it. Far too often we rush into new tasks and projects without having a clear picture of what success looks like. We think we will get more clarity as we work at it but what happens is, without a clear picture we can get sidetracked. We can get distracted by elements that are not important to our project and we can lose motivation and direction without a clear goal in sight.
THE POWER OF WHY
When you think you have clarity about what goals you want to pursue, take some time to check in with the reason you want them. Often we set goals because we think we should. We should do more exercise; we should eat healthy foods or we should follow the crowd. When we do things because we should rather than because we have a personal burning desire to achieve something, as you might guess we will be substantially less successful with the outcome.
When you do something because you are excited, motivated and passionate about achieving the goal you will increase your chances of achieving it.
In a business context it can be helpful to understand the motivations behind certain goals. In my experience working with leaders and teams, the more clarity a team have around their departmental or company goals the more successful they will be in achieving them and the more engaged they will be as employees.
Another way to ensure that the goals you are setting are right for you and will be motivating is to make sure you are clear about your values. Your values or your top priorities are the things that are important to you in your life now. It could be honesty, family and freedom, or it could be power, money and achievement. There is no right or wrong answer but the closer you get to your truth the easier it will be to align your goals to your values, and when your goals are aligned to your values you’re less likely to sabotage your own success and more likely to work comfortably towards their achievement.
SO HOW DO WE SET GOALS?
It’s important to remember that a goal is your destination but without a map you won’t get there via the most direct route. The Map is your plan for how you get there. What do you need to do each day in order to reach that harbour? An effective strategy for goal setting is to focus on the daily action that needs to occur in order to reach your goal in the future. For example, if you want to run a marathon you will have to create the habit of running. If you want to write a book you will have to create the habit of writing. When you focus on small daily habits and behaviours, the big goals come without too much stress or strain.
In my experience as a coach of many years. There are two core elements to goal achievement. A plan and accountability. Accountability is often the factor we forget about when it comes to goal setting. In a research study carried out by the ASTD it found that your chance of successfully reaching a goal rises to 95% when you establish an ongoing appointment with your accountability partner. Think about that in a work context we usually achieve what we set out to do because there is someone, a client or a colleague waiting for the result. This might make sense why you sometimes fail to follow through with your personal goals.
Ciara Conlon is a high performance life and leadership coach, author, speaker and creator of the Lifeflow planner.
Ciara Conlon
