How to Take Advantage of the Power of Setting Goals
… and avoid being caught in the Dilemma of Depressing Dreams
Everyone has dreams. We dream when we sleep, we daydream while we drive in our car or when we’re tasked with tedious chores at home or at work.
Our minds always tend to wander whenever we find a minute where our brain can relax and stop focusing on something concrete and specific.
A dream can be an emotion, a wish, and a desire. Mostly “it’s a wonderful thing you can create in your imagination, most often related to your future.”
Now dreams are great. They can be pleasant to think about and can provide one with a lot of motivation and inspiration to go out and tackle the world.
However, they may also be an inconvenience.
Now, why exactly is that you might ask?
Well, I believe that dreams sometimes can also be a demotivating factor in life. If you have a dream of becoming successful, living in a big house, driving a big car, traveling the world (you name it), it can become such an overwhelming sensation. You might think it’ll be absolutely impossible for you to ever fulfill your dream, and that may result in depressing thoughts.
So how can you avoid getting into this negative cycle of depressing thoughts? Or as I like to call it: the Dilemma of Depressing Dreams. Or even better: DDD.
It’s good, right? I seriously just came up with it!
Perhaps I should copyright it?
Anyways…
I would now like to introduce a concept, which I’m sure is rather well-known to you:
Goals.
Now, what exactly is a goal?
Edwin Locke and Gary Latham were some of the earliest pioneers in goal-setting theory. They define it as follows:
“A goal is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieving.”
As you can see, a goal is actually partly a dream. Up until the “envisioning” part of the definition, the concept of dreams is actually defined pretty well.
What sets goals apart from dreams is the “planning” and “committing” part.
And that’s why setting goals is the only key to getting out of the DDD.
This article will help you transform your dreams into tangible goals and teach you how to increase your chances of success in achieving them.
Why You Should Set Goals
Now, why exactly is setting goals so important?
Well, besides avoiding the DDD, the famous American author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins has the following to say about the importance of goal setting:
“Goal setting is vital because it helps you decide and focus on what’s really important to you. Effective goal setting also lets you measure progress, overcome procrastination, and visualize your dreams.”
So, first off when it comes to transforming dreams into reality is picking out which dreams to actually pursue.
Is it traveling the world? Becoming financially independent within a certain amount of years? Running 10k in a certain amount of time?
It can be basically anything that you wish to accomplish.
An important thing, however, is that you must feel a certain dedication and desire to achieve whatever your dream may be. As Tony Robbins says, you have to figure out what’s really important to you.
The famous author Napoleon Hill who wrote the acclaimed book Think and Grow Rich is of the same belief as Robbins.
“No one may achieve success without first knowing precisely what he wants.”
Now you have chosen your dream(s), which — as you may remember — was the first part of the definition of a goal: “an idea of the future or desired result that [you] envision”.
The next step is the planning part.
Are you prepared to transform the idea that’s been occupying your thoughts into something tangible you can actually take action on?
Great! (Assuming your answer was “yes”)
However, before making the plan to fulfill what is now your goal, we need to assess what the goal actually is.
And I’m not talking about whether it has to do with your financial situation or physical, per se.
No, I’m talking about the specificity of the goal.
Is it specific? Or is it merely a broad and undefinable fantasy?
Because there is a difference. A big difference!
Let’s take some examples:
Broad: I want to be healthy.
Specific: I want to lose 20 pounds and adopt a diet with no sugar.
Another:
Broad: I want to be rich.
Specific: I want to produce a monthly passive income of $10,000 allowing me to be financially free.
Do you see the difference?
It’s pretty clear, right?
The specific goals, as opposed to the broad ones, have clear targets.
Defining your goals in such a specific manner allows you to make an actual plan. With general and broad goals like “wanting to be rich” or “being healthy”, there is no way of telling when the goal will actually be accomplished.
As such, your broad goals are basically still just dreams. They aren’t tangible.
So be sure to specify, specify, specify.
One advice in Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is to write down the exact amount of money that you want in your possession at a given date.
Another way of tackling the challenge of unspecificity is provided by Peter F. Drucker, the author of Managing Oneself.
He believes that if your plan goes beyond 18 months into the future, the goal is too unspecific.
To be honest, I don’t entirely believe in this statement. A goal of achieving financial freedom by producing a passive income of X amount of dollars will most likely not be a goal with a deadline 18 months later.
So, I wouldn’t rely my entire goal-setting apparatus on that.
However, Drucker’s approach forces you to break your larger main goals into smaller, more concrete ones — you could call them sub-goals.
This is actually a good thing, and something you should do with any goal you set yourself.
Because by breaking down your main goals into smaller ones, you will more frequently experience small wins. And experiencing small wins has the effect of increased motivation and engagement.
Now, that’s a positive feedback loop for ya’.
The more you win, the more you, well, win.
Why You Should Write Down Your Goals
Having now specified your goal, and made it clear to yourself in your mind, the next step is pretty simple.
Write it down.
If you’re in a hurry, you can skip the rest of this section and jump to the next one, because that’s basically what I want you to take with you from this part of the article.
However, for those of you more interested, let me elaborate on the power of writing down your goals and why it works.
Research conducted by Dominican University of California showed that people who write down their goals or tell them to friends and family are on average 33% more successful in achieving their goals!
Just by opening your mouth or putting it on paper! Crazy simple, right?.
Napoleon Hill shares some advice on the matter in Think and Grow Rich. After having set your financial goal and determined a deadline for its completion, you must write down a clear statement of your exact goal, plan, and deadline.
Now, you might ask.
Christian, if I have an absolutely clear idea of my goal born from a dream of mine, why would I need to write it down or tell it to others?
Well, the keyword here is accountability.
By writing down your goals, you make yourself accountable to your goal. It’s like a contract with yourself.
And taking it a step further by sharing your goals with one of your friends raises the level of accountability and commitment to a whole other level. Because now, you also answer to someone else.
Putting your goals on paper forces you to really think them through. You might think that a floating idea or dream in your mind is “good enough” for you. But if you’re really committed to achieving it, you must transform it into a goal and write it down.
And while you’re at it, specify some actions you can take to get one step closer to completion. As previously mentioned, breaking your goal down into small tasks or sub-goals increases your rate of success. It also boosts your productivity.
Why You Should Regularly Review Your Goals
You’re now much closer to achieving your dreams. You’ve managed to transform them into tangible goals and have written them down and shared them with your friends.
So, what’s next?
Well, first off, you should get started on completing your goal. If you’ve added action commitments to your written goal statement, it should be fairly easy — just take it from the top.
If you haven’t written down any actionable steps, that would be a great starting point.
What you now must focus on, besides actually progressing on your goals, is reviewing them.
By reviewing them, I mean two things:
First, you should simply read your goals regularly.
Second, I mean taking stock of your goals concerning the set deadline.
Have you made any progress since your last review? Is it going according to plan? Have you managed to complete your sub-goals?
There are multiple benefits to reviewing your goals.
By reviewing your goals on a weekly (or even daily) basis, you will stay focused on working on achieving them. It will force you to deliver on your promises, as you are often faced with the agreement you’ve made with yourself.
Furthermore, by constantly exposing yourself to “your life’s purpose through a review of your goals, you activate energy and momentum as you take one step closer to your destination.”
The repetitive action of reminding yourself of what you have set out to accomplish will eventually become an ingrained part of your mind and soul. You will be programmed to always be working on reaching it.
Finally, you should also ask yourself if the goal is still valid, and why it’s important for you to achieve.
Has something happened that might change the desired outcome? Can you make any adjustments to the actions you need to perform to succeed?
What’s Next?
What I want you to do after finishing reading this article is for you to follow these four steps:
- Ask yourself the following two questions:
What do you really want with your life? And how do you want to grow as a human being?
Your answers to these questions will determine the goals of your life. - Now, take these goals and specify the sh*t out of them, so you are able to make a plan to take massive action on
Break down the big goals into smaller ones to experience smaller wins more often and thus increase your motivation and engagement. - Write down the goals and share them with your close ones to fully commit and make yourself accountable to them
- Finally, review your goals regularly (daily, preferably) to stay focused and motivated
If you follow this recipe thoroughly, you will be able to take advantage of the power of setting goals for yourself. And you will never be caught in the Dilemma of Depressing Dreams again.
I promise you.
