How to Set Goals
Most people don’t have goals, but even the ones don’t know how to set them. There are a lot of business books about goal setting (where I first ran into it), but my favorite is a book called Traction by Gino Wickman which I first read as a freshman in college. The thing is about setting goals isn’t the goal itself, it’s how you get there.
The book is about companies, and talks a lot about aligning teams (which helps prevent drama, departures) but it also talks about this process around goal setting that I really like. Basically he starts by defining: where do we want to this company (or for yourself in) to be in 10 years?
But the key is he doesn’t stop there, he backs out what he needs to do to get there:
What do I need to do in 5 years to get there?
What do I need to do in 3 years to get to the 5 year goal?
What do I need to do in 1 years to get to the 3 year goal?
What do I need to do in 6 months to get to the 1 year goal?
What do I need to do in 3 months to get to the 6 month goal?
What do I need to do this week to get to the 3 month goal?
What do I need to do today to get to the this week?
This will give you one or two VERY concrete actions you need to do today to be successful to reach your long term goals.
Then he just revists those goals, sometimes daily, sometimes weekly. The book has a detailed framework for setting KPIs and OKRs which I think is overdone (fancy buzzwords for stepping on the scale) - it’s all about the goals and revisiting them but you can lay it out how it works for you. This is important for any person or company.
For me I set clear goals (ie hit x revenue, lose 20 lbs) then work backwards and check in. Every week I write down what went well and what didn’t as a mini retro. What you’ll find is that some goals that seemed impossible in 10 years magically happen in 3 if you stick with it, just takes a little willpower. It’s also helpful to set goals around the input especially when output might be variable. Feeling good about the work you put in is much better than feeling good about what you get out.
For me personally? I have a spreadsheet I’ve been filling out for years (since 2016) that replicates this process. I have many friends who do it too in different forms, because if you don’t know where you’re going in 10 years, how can you possibly get there from today?
