Why You Shouldn’t Set Big Goals

Do you want to know one of the main reasons why people fail when it comes to setting goals? They set them too high.

I am a big fan of goal setting. Unless you set goals, there is a good chance that you will muddle through life without achieving what you really want. However, if you want to experience the feeling of joy and satisfaction that comes from accomplishing your goal, you need to be careful not to set your sights too high.

BIG GOALS CAN LEAD TO FAILURE

What do I mean by that? It means that you need to consider where you currently are in your life in order to create goals which you believe you have a good chance of achieving. If you don’t really believe you will be able to achieve the goals you have set, you are wasting your time and you’re setting yourself up to fail.

When I teach goal setting workshops, I ask participants to come up with some goals that are important to them. They usually get very excited and they come up with what I call ‘all or nothing goals.’ They set a goal that is the exact opposite of where they currently are.

For instance, someone who doesn’t do any exercise sets a goal to walk an hour every day. What do you think the odds are that someone who never exercises is going to exercise every day for an hour? The answer is slim to none. By creating this type of goal, she is setting herself up for failure. The first few days that she doesn’t meet the goal, she will begin to get very discouraged. She will probably say to herself, “I can’t do this. I’m never going to be able to reach my goal. Why bother?” Then she is going to quit trying.

MAKE IT EASY TO SUCCEED

When I work with people on goal setting, I tell them one very important thing. Make it easy to succeed. Set small goals that you can easily achieve. When you have achieved those, then you can set goals that are a little bit bigger. When you’ve accomplished them, you can move on to slightly higher goals. Once you’ve got momentum going, you can then stretch and make the goals a lot bigger.

Let’s go back to the example of the non-exerciser. To make it likely that she will achieve her real goal of exercising on a regular basis, she should start with a small action step. She can set a goal to exercise for 15 minutes, three times per week. This is very achievable. She can walk during lunchtime, after work, before work, on the weekend. She can easily fit this into her schedule and she has flexibility as to when she is going to do it.

Once she has been walking for 15 minutes three times per week, she can add on. She can extend her walking time to 30 minutes, or add one or two extra 15 minute sessions into her week. When she has done this for a while, she can make her goal more challenging.

Success builds on success. Setting goals that are too high can cause you to fail. When you set small goals that you can easily achieve, you feel a sense of accomplishment. This will motivate you to continue moving forward.