Goal setting is very important especially in your career and personal life. It’s important for your goals to be clear, concise and well defined. Instead of just living life on the edge and expecting things to happen for you, goal setting involves patterning your life, creating momentum for how your life should go and gives you intense purpose. It is important to understand what you want to achieve and how you aim to achieve these goals. Goals can range from micro and mini-goals to major goals. They might be things as small as ensuring you read 2 pages of a business article daily to bigger goals like buying a house or rising to the top of an organisation. You need to have clear goals that will keep you on track and make you accountable.
How to Set Goals

  • The goal should be realistic and broken down into small, action step.
  • They should be clear and specific, not vague and broad-based.
  • Focus on the things you can control.
  • Talk to your boss about your goals and how they relate to the organisation/departmental goals.
  • Think about your career path in the long run- don’t only focus on the now, also think about the

future while planning.

  • Go beyond immediate tasks and think about the future.
  • Ask for support if you need it- no one is an island of his/her own.
  • Track your accomplishments to see how far you have come and what still needs to be done.
  • Refine your goals- your goals are not set in stone. What matters now may not matter in the next 6 months so feel free to re-evaluate and refine your goals and aspirations.

How to Deal with Not Reaching Your Goals

  • To be very honest, it can be very upsetting and painful when you have set clear goals and they do not work out. It is disheartening and can push you into depression or make you feel unhappy and unaccomplished. You should embrace failure/non-achievement, it’s part of the journey and something you need to accomplish success (without the rain, you won’t appreciate the sunshine). Here are a few ways to deal with not achieving your goals and moving forward;
  • Do a postmortem and learn from the experience? There is something to learn from failure or non-achievement of goals.
  • Get away from the situation, don’t be obsessive about it, instead, pick up another project, go on vacation, take a break to clear your head.
  • Ask brutally honest questions from yourself, your boss, your friends and people around you to get to the root of why you did not achieve your goal.
  • Don’t work alone, learn from credible sources and develop yourself.
  • Reboot and restart. After you beat yourself up, go back to the drawing board and start over.

Failure doesn’t define you, the bounce back is always greater than the setback. Dust yourself over and start again.

Have you ever not reached a goal you set for yourself? How did you deal with it?