Refocused Living

The quality of the goals that you set is often an indicator of whether or not you’ll achieve those goals.

How you phrase a goal and how you aim for it’s achievement can freshen up an otherwise boring goal. Things like these can boost motivation, keep you focused on completion, and give yourself a great challenge that’s not too tough, but not too easy either.

So how can you set fresher goals – goals that make you feel like you want to take inspired action immediately? Here are three simple ways.

1. Give yourself self-imposed constraints as a way to freshen creative thinking.

Occasionally you’ll set a goal that looks great on paper, but you drag yourself through the completion process. “Write a 1,000 motivational post on goal setting” sounds like an awesome, valuable goal; finishing the post and hitting “Publish” with a completed version is a different story.

Part of the reason motivation dissipates in these cases is because your heart rejects goals that seem uninspired. Your mind might say “Yes, I want to complete an amazing post on goal setting!” but your heart might say “Hold up. Something’s not right here. Intellectually, I know that this a fabulous idea… but where’s the passion behind the idea? I don’t totally agree with this goal.” This can be an incredibly frustrating issue to confront.

A great trick to use to get around this problem is to give your goal a creative constraint that forces you to think outside the box. For example, if the aforementioned goal is something you want to accomplish but you don’t find it in your heart to lift your fingers to type the post, why not make the goal interesting? Instead of simply typing 1,000 words, perhaps the constraint is that you’re not allowed to use any words with the letter “s” in them. Or maybe the constraint you choose is that you cannot use more than one of the same word in the entire post.

The goal here isn’t to give yourself massive constraints to the point that the goal is no longer enjoyable to reach. (No pun intended!) On the same side of that coin, you also don’t want to give yourself constraints that make it impossible to reach your goal – there’s absolutely no reason to self-handicap yourself. Instead, the idea is to add some spice and variety to a goal that’s desperately lacking in excitement.

Maybe the goal you set was too easy for you. It’s no fun to continue after goals that don’t give you a challenge, that don’t tug at your heart strings, that don’t give your mind a much needed workout. Constraints add in a wonderful way to truly test your abilities – constraints push your goals to the limits without pushing you over the brink.

2. Plan the goal out as much as humanly possible, and then set a fast tempo towards completion.

At first glance, this advice might seem like standard goal setting advice. “Work faster!” is something you see and hear in every goal setting blog post, guide, book, and speech. However, there’s a subtle difference here that I want to address.

Most people understand that you have a starting point for a goal (where you’re currently at) and a definite ending point (where you want to eventually be) and a time span for achieving that goal (everything that goes on in the middle). They also understand that goal setting also requires a bit of planning (how you are going to get through that middle section unscathed) and critical thinking so you don’t get stuck along the way.

And… that’s pretty much as far as people get. They fail at adequately planning through the rough middle section, and so when they hear the phrase “work faster!” they push on the gas and tailspin out of control. Somehow these people wind up in an even worse spot than they previously were in. Whoops!

A way to get around this is to give serious consideration to not only the goal you want to achieve, but also the goal setting process itself. You need to give critical thought to the steps it’s going to take you to get from Point A to Point B. Sometimes there’s not much to think about. At other times you may be sitting around creating pages of plans in order to be as best prepared as possible. Whatever the case may be, dump all of your thoughts onto paper and organize them in the most coherent manner possible. Completely plan out your goal from beginning to end with as much thought as possible – create that step by step plan.

Once you’ve created that plan and you know with a 95% assurance that you can achieve your goal by working your plan, then set a quick tempo and get moving! Now, notice I didn’t say “Work faster!” – I said, “set a quick tempo.” This is something that Donald Trump mentions in one of his books. He writes that he moves with a fast tempo (in other words, a fast speed) that requires everybody else to keep up with him… implying that if they don’t, they’re going to quickly fall behind.

A fast tempo or speed doesn’t necessarily mean you work haphazardly. And it doesn’t mean you breeze through tasks like a machine and create subpar work. If you reach your goal but only do a half-great job, you’ll wind up with a nagging feeling that you could have done much better. Instead, set a quick speed. Work quickly, but not stupidly. When one task is done, take a break, and immediately move on to the next step that you’ve previously planned out.

Speed is important when it comes to goal achievement. When you work at a slower tempo than what you could possibly work at, you’re unable to build momentum. One success inspires you to have another success, and so on. You can’t achieve this rapid pacing without moving quickly and intelligently through your plan.

With a step by step plan on how to achieve your goal and a brisk pacing, you’re feel as if your goal is fresh and brand new. It won’t stay stagnant in your mind and you’ll feel as if your goal is being accomplished every day, right before your very eyes.

3. Take your time to craft exciting goals. Let your goal ideas incubate for a little before you create an action plan and take action.

Have you ever gotten really excited over something that sounds like an awesome idea at the moment? You probably started diving right into your idea without much forethought… and, of course, the next day you hit a roadblock when the high motivation you had for your idea fizzled out.

Lackluster goals often act as a mask over what we truly desire. Sometimes when we begin thinking about what a goal means to us, we realize we never wanted that goal in the first place. Because these dull goals look good on the outside at first glance, you’re prone to falling in the trap of starting them before you even know what you’re doing. (For example… do you remember that awesome looking bag of potato chips sitting on the kitchen counter? I bet you promised yourself you were only going to eat one chip. )

When you think of an idea that you believe would make a great goal, let it sit in your mind for a bit. Think about the idea for a couple of days. Spend some time thinking about if the idea is a goal that aligns up with your values and missions in life. You might find that goals that appear fresh to you are the ones that you can truly stand behind at the end of the day; these goals are the ones that you put a massive amount of thought into what the end results are going to look like.

* * * * *

Setting fresher goals isn’t something that’s difficult, but it does take a bit of thought. You’ll never want to go back to setting boring goals ever again.

One of the most important personal development skill to learn is how to ask specific, great questions. While this can be a difficult skill at first, with a little bit of practice it’s something that can come naturally and easily.

Asking specific questions is a lot like goal setting in a miniature way. When you set a goal that’s sharp and focused, you’re able to see past the finish line. The steps you need to take to cross that line become clear. If your goal is “I want to set better goals,” you’ll never get there. At best, you’ll be able to take a few random stabs in the dark and you may achieve some limited results that result in a few clearer goals. However, if you rewrote that goal as “I’m reading one new goal setting book and finding and applying five tips and tricks that I can immediately apply to my goal setting,” it’s clear to see what results you want to see after the goal is completed. It even lends itself to implying how you’re going to achieve the goal.

Because everybody loves music, I’m going to give you a musical example to illustrate this topic further. Don’t worry if you don’t have a musical bone in your body or you can’t play the piano – you’ll still understand and appreciate the message coming across.

Bad: “How come I can’t play this passage?”

I shouldn’t even need to give an explanation for why this is a bad question. This question is the farthest question from being clear. You get a few brownie points for being in the general ballpark (piano playing) and at least asking a question about something you’re having trouble with (can’t play something). If you asked this question to any piano teacher worth their weight in Mozart sheet music, they’ll immediately ask you to clarify.

Better: “Why do my fingers start to get tangled when I get to these measures, even though I’ve practiced this passage for hours on end?”

Okay, this is a little bit better. Now we know what the problem is (finger dexterity at a specific area in the music) and a piano teacher can start giving you methods to fix your problem. But you’re still not telling us your issue in a specific, focused way. While this question is leaps and bounds ahead of the former question, there are still some clarity issues that need to be resolved.

Best: “When I get to measures 34 to 36, I become finger tied as I’m not quite sure which fingers to use to achieve the most smooth playing in this passage while still sounding quiet and mysterious.”

The above question is like a piano teacher’s version of heaven. Now it’s clear what your main problem is (not sure of which fingers to use to play certain notes) and where the problem is located at (measures 34 to 36), and you’re also telling me what characteristics you want the final solution to have (must be able to also sound smooth, quiet, and mysterious).

The more crystal clear your questions are, the better results you’re going to have in the long run. Asking a vague question will almost always result in a vague answer. It’s like somebody asking you to identify a tall, thin object in thick fog. What you’re looking at could be a tree, a telephone pole, or even a lighthouse, but because you’re vision is cloudy, you’ll never quite know for sure. Remove the fog from your mind by being more precise. You want to be able to ask your questions to yourself or other people and be able to get an answer back that’s going to totally work for you, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

At the end of the day, the best questions always lead themselves to solutions, as you probably have guessed. A well crafted question leads itself to a beautifully sculpted answer. When you can see the answer to your question emerging in front of you, you no longer feel stuck; when you no longer feel stuck because you now know exactly what to do, you’re more likely to take immediate action. Action leads to a motivational increase – feeling motivated always feels good, which then leads you to asking better questions.

Lame questions are… well, lame! Don’t ask lame questions, and if you need any help… just ask around.