Goal Setting for Creatives: Staying (or Getting) on Track with Your Goals, Part 4 of 4

Photo by Tamsim Slater.

In Part 1 of this series on Goal Setting for Creatives, I introduced the annual planning process I use to create and track my goals for the coming year. Out of this process, I create my own Strategic Planner, which is a portable, visual booklet that serves as a beautiful and practical reference of the goals I’ve created for the year.

Part 2 shows you exactly how to design achievable goals by using a handy spreadsheet I developed.

In Part 3, I’ve created a video to show you how my 2010 Strategic Planner looks so far and how to put together your own.

Now comes the hard part: staying the course through the ups and downs of life. That is, all the things that pop up to derail us from those best laid plans we worked so hard to create.

By the way, if you did make a plan: good for you. Most people don’t do it, they think about doing it.

If you are still thinking about making a plan, good for you, too. Even more people don’t think about making a plan to get from where they are to where they want to be.

But since you’re here, reading this right now, you’re either thinking about it or have a plan in progress. I mention all of this up front to acknowledge that making (and sticking with) and kind of new goal is really hard sometimes. It might even be hard a lot of the time, depending.

Now that we’ve acknowledged that you are a gorgeous genius for even considering the courageous topic of goals, here are some guidelines and tools to help you design goals that can stand up to the trials that life (and our own old habits of mind and action) will present the minute we’ve decided to make a positive change or start something new.

Take a deep breath.
Staying on Track with Your Goals is more easily taken with a spoonful of sugar in the form of mantra (a phrase you can repeat often when you get scared or feel overwhelmed).

Our mantra is an ancient proverb from Japan:

Fall down seven times, get up eight.

I invite you to gently keep that in mind as we continue.

First: Make Sure Your Goals Are SMART

Because you can’t really stay on track if you’re not first on the track. Thankfully, someone, somewhere in the world of business invented this neat little acronym to evaluate our goals as being true goals, not just vague intentions subject to interpretation.

SMART is an acronym to help you remember the criteria of an effective goal: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timebound. If all of these criteria are in place, the goal is strong. These criteria make the goal more objective and less subjective.

SPECIFIC
Criteria such as frequency, rate, or percentage set for a specific outcome. “Expand product line” is open to interpretation. “Launch one new product line per year, consisting of three items with four color variations each” is specific.

Questions to ask: What specifically will the outcome for this goal look like? Could someone who did not set the goal gauge its success or failure? Specificity takes subjectivity out of the equation.

MEASURABLE
The way to measure the specific goal. Devise a system for tracking progress on the goal. Decide how, who, when, and where the goal will be measured and reported on.

Questions to ask: How will I know for certain I am making progress on the goal? How would someone else know? For business goals, if you have employees, how will they know they successfully meeting the goal or not? What quantifiable measures (number, frequency, percentage, time) are in place to track the goal?

ACHIEVABLE
Given available resources (such as time, money, help), and previous experience, how achievable is the goal?

Questions to ask: What resources must be in place to support this goal? Is it reasonable to expect these resources are available at this time? Do I have capabilities required to accomplish this goal within the time frame set?

RELEVANT
How is the goal meaningful to what you most want out of life? Or, for a business goal: how is the goal meaningful to the person assigned to execute it and to the company in general?

Questions to ask: For what purpose am I taking on this goal? Will the achievement of this goal positively affect my quality of life and/or business in significant ways? How is this goal aligned with what I value most?

TIMEBOUND
This is simply putting a timeline on the goal.

Questions to ask: By what date will this goal be completed? Without a deadline, an goal becomes a moving target that cannot be hit.

The Acid Test for a SMART Goal:

Someone else should be able to look at your goal and be able to understand exactly what the outcome should be. They should be able to evaluate whether or not the goal is progressing or not, based on the criteria you set.

A well-designed goal can be easily communicated to and acted upon by others, not just the author of the goal.

SMART criteria are especially handy when two or more people are working on something. It gets everyone on the same page, without ambiguity. It greatly facilitates communication. Since SMART criteria are objective, they can be looked at without emotion or drama.

Now that you know how to make SMART goals, use following guidelines for staying on track. They are presented in no particular order. Mix and match, make your own recipe.

Measure Your Results: Early and Often

Have you ever set a goal and then never really looked at it again? Usually we don’t look because we’ve gotten derailed almost before we started.

The best way to deal with this is to set up a measurement system and decide how often you’re going to chart the results. Your measures are in place to give that all-important objective feedback, not feed a shame spiral.

Check in as often as is reasonable, depending upon your goal. Budgetary type goals might only require a monthly check in. Weekly charting will give more immediate feedback — crucial if you can’t wait until the end of the month to count the money. A weight-loss goal might require a daily check in. The key is to find what works for you.

A daily check in works wonders for things that we are taking, well, one day at a time over a long haul. Things like quitting bad habits, starting new good habits, and goals that are related to significant personal changes that have been difficult to achieve.

Check In Early, Often and Fun

The more fun and nurturing and inspiring you can make your follow up and review time, the better.

These are simple things you can do to make the experience positive, instead of a big drag. Because guess what? We won’t do things that are a big drag.

Anything you can do to build in positive rituals with your check-in’s will begin to anchor positive feelings around your goals. Which is a big support when we are in rut.

Have a favorite cup of tea, light a candle, play inspiring music, do your review at a cafe or in another location that inspires you. If you have a buddy, schedule a virtual or in-person meeting to do your reviews together and plan for something fun.

Speaking of Fun: Treats

Build in some rewards for all of your hard work. They don’t have to cost money or be food-related if those run cross-current to your goals. List all of the simple things that give you pleasure, and build them in as rewards. Good dog! Get a treat. It works.

Get out your calendar as soon as you create you goals and schedule the check-in sessions. If you already have goals and don’t have a check-in plan in place, get one. Without it, your goals will tend to drift (or drown) with the currents of life.

Make Your Daily Tactics Something You Love (or at least like a lot)

Know what motivates you, and do more of that. If you hate to exercise, find something you like to do that will get you moving that doesn’t feel like exercise. For example: meeting a friend for a walk, instead of at a cafe where the pastries beckon. Or taking up some kind of sport or movement (martial arts, dance, yoga, hiking) that you really like.

Additionally, layer in as much pleasure as you can to the experience. Walking in nature, dance classes with great music, catching up with a good friend while you walk. The key is for the motivator to be so compelling that you actually look forward to it, instead of dread it.

Try Mastering One Goal at a Time

Maybe you’ve got a lot of irons in the fire and are tackling several goals at once. That’s fine if you are able to do it all. But if you are struggling, try reducing the number of goals until you find the right balance.

This is usually not what we want to hear, especially if we are in any way desperate to get big results fast. (Like losing 30 pounds in 2 weeks while writing a novel, holding down a full time job, raising kids, and training for a marathon.) That is only a slight exaggeration of how full our plates are with life, and then we go and add ambitious and lofty goals on top of it all.

Prioritize

Lessening the number of goals is easier when we prioritize. Make a list of all your goals and rank them from 1, being highest priority, 2, for second, and so on….until each item on the list has a number. This will probably feel impossible. If every item feels like a number 1, that’s a sign that there’s too much going on at once.

Something’s gotta give.
Let those items at the bottom of the list fall off or set aside until another time, at least until you’ve got traction with your highest priorities.

Instead of Throwing in the Towel, Consider Lowering Bar

A lot of times, the reason that we’re not accomplishing our goals is because we’ve set our standard for achievement too high. Because there is a fair amount of overwhelm and self-judgment built in to this scenario, the tendency is to give up out of shame. And then create all kinds of realistic excuses to try and mitigate that shame. Which doesn’t help us at all to get what we really, really, want.

Instead, make your goal easier. If you’ve got an all or nothing sort of attitude, that’s worth looking at. We’re afraid that tiny incremental progress (the turtle approach) isn’t going to get us to the finish line as fast as we want (remember the hare? didn’t work out so well.)

Make Your Goal Easier

Make your goal easier by looking at your M section in SMART (measurable) and make the measure smaller, less time-consuming, less daunting. It doesn’t matter whether or not your mind thinks you “should” be able to run 30 minutes per day. If you’ve never run before, or haven’t run since the Clinton administration, then maybe the easier goal is to walk for 30 minutes. Or 5 minutes.

In other words, be a turtle.

Locate Potential Conflicts

This might seem obvious, but make sure that you don’t have goals that are actually at cross-purposes with each other. For example, a goal to cut back on spending, and another goal to get in shape.

Next thing you know, you’ve joined an expensive gym, (and you hate gyms, or the location, or the hours, or all of the above), and then feel extra cranky about how it’s messing with your spending plan.

Both goals will go out the window as the the conflict builds. This looks like: paying for a membership and not using it. By the way, gyms depend upon this happening, that’s how they can oversell memberships. Imagine: a business model built on most people giving up!

When you use the SMART criteria and the steps in building a strategic plan, you probably won’t end up with this scenario. But I mention it because conflict between goals is a common pitfall.

The Buddy System

Many successful programs that require ongoing motivation implement the concept of the buddy system (AA, support groups, the zen sangha) so steal this idea from them.

Your buddy should be unconditionally supportive of your goal so they don’t accidentally sabotage your results. Ideally, pick someone not related to you or dependent upon you financially. Your buddy can even be a professional: a therapist or coach or some kind of online network.

There are like-minded people out there in your online social networks who love to connect around getting things done. Find them and see how you can support each other.

Find Your Own Inspiration

Speaking of online social networks, you can search for blogs and websites about the subject you are trying to master. Follow these folks who inspire you and read their blogs.

As a person who lives abroad and has lived and worked alone much of my life, I am grateful that Internet provides a way of connecting with people of like mind who are usually very far away geographically.

Bonus: sometimes my online inspiration folks end up becoming people I work with or become “real life” friends with.

Before the Internet (remember that strange time so long ago?) we had to get our inspiration from books and other media, and had to find support groups in the classifieds or on flyers in the health food store. Plus, the Internet is such a perfect medium for us introverts who are shy about making connections.

Use a Strategic Planner

However you design it, whether it is pocket-sized and portable, or a giant 3-ring binder that lives on your desk (or both!), a strategic planner is a visual, tangible plan that you can hold in your hands and look at everyday. Do not underestimate the power of having your dream/goal/plan mapped out in in a compelling way. Especially if you are a visual learner, creative thinker, or someone who just has a hard time with other types of goal-setting systems.

Personally, I’m very challenged by getting things done (my thinking and emotion modes of functioning are much more developed than my action mode) and I am not naturally well-organized. I have to work at both of those things. Using a strategic planner has made all the difference in helping me manage both, while keeping my artistic self happy.

Parts 1, 2, and 3 show you exactly how to make and use a strategic planner.

Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have. Without having a goal, it’s difficult to score. — Paul Arden

To Wrap Up

These guidelines will help you both set well-designed goals, and to diagnose potential pitfalls in with the goals you are struggling with. When you find out where the weak link is in your plan, adjustments can be made. Rinse and repeat as often as needed until you find the combination of strategies that work for you.

Even just one of these guidelines, when applied, can make the difference that makes the difference.

The important thing to remember is: there are different strategies that work for us at different times in our lives, and for different goals, and in different situations.

So if you’ve tried one or more strategies listed below and did or did not get results, look at what worked and what didn’t. Then try something else, or try it again, with a different perspective, time, person, place.

You know: Fall down seven times, get up eight.

How About You?

Got Some Tips and Stratgies for Staying on Track with Goals? Please share your links, resources and ideas here in the comments.

Related posts:

1. Strategic Planner Tutorial—Goal Setting for Creatives, part 3 of 4
2. The Guts of the Strategic Planner—Goal Setting for Creatives, part 2 of 4
3. Goal Setting for Creatives: My 2010 Strategic Planner, Part 1 of 4
4. Project Journals: A Creative Way to Get Things Done
5. Getting Regular: Project Check-In’s To Support Creative Plans + March 2010 Review