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. 
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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.
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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. 
