San Francisco CBT Series: Successful Goal Setting, Part 2
San Francisco CBT Series: Successful Goal Setting, Part 2
If you’re like most ambitious professionals and leaders, you’re constantly setting and meeting goals for yourself. Your goals may be personal or professional. Goals are anything that takes you to the next level in some area of your life. You might want to lose some weight, or have a stronger, healthier body. Perhaps you want to change careers or get a promotion. Or maybe you want to meet a significant other, improve your communication in your relationships, or be more patient with your kids. I’m a psychologist in San Francisco and I notice that most of my clients have some of the goals I just mentioned. Having goals are an essential part of our growth and development as a person and having the right goals always benefit us and the people around us.
In the previous blog post, San Francisco CBT Series: Successful Goal Setting, Part 1, I described one of the best ways to have successful goals, which is using the well-known SMART formula. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. Setting goals using these characteristics makes it more likely you will achieve them.
But there’s more! I’m sharing 10 more essential tips to successful goal setting that you definitely want to keep in mind.
Start by focusing on your intention. Anytime you have a goal in mind, it’s important to start by clarifying the intention for that goal. Focus on what it is you want to achieve in some area of your life. Having an intention helps you to connect with the outcome of your goal. For example, instead of having a goal of going running more, focus on the intention. This could be, wanting to be healthier, more in shape, or lose a certain number of pounds. With this intention in mind, you can then plan what you will do to achieve that outcome.
Pick realistic and believable goals. One of the most frequent challenges people face in reaching their goals is that they pick goals that aren’t realistic, or are such big goals, it’s hard to believe it’s possible to achieve. For example, if you’re prone to anger outbursts and set a goal of never getting angry again, this may not be realistic. It may be hard to believe that you could stop yourself from getting angry every time. Instead, making your goals tangible helps to make them more achievable. You could set a goal of learning 3 tools to help you cope and reduce your anger outbursts and commit to using them. A good goal is challenging, but not so challenging that it feels overwhelming.
Break goals into a journey. Often when we set goals that are unrealistic and too big, we falter, get upset, and give up. Instead, view your goal as a long-term journey, where each leg of the journey leads up to where you’ll finally arrive. Use small, incremental behavioral changes. Change can be done easily if the changes are small. It helps to set some milestones along the journey and rewards as you meet those milestones.
Focus on systems. Having a system to achieve our goals helps us get results. When you know what your goals are, you can create a system to help you achieve those goals. Focus on those systems every day. For example, if you want to have a more peaceful and balanced mind, ask yourself what systems are needed to achieve this? You might come up with a system of regular meditations, breathing practices, and walks along the beach, that you do every day.
Track your progress. Measuring your progress is extremely important. It provides information on how well you’re doing. You can’t know if you’re making progress toward your goal if you don’t measure it. You can shift your strategy if you realize that you’re not doing well. You’ll be more motivated to stay on the journey and keep pushing toward your goals. When you’re making progress, it will make you feel excited. You can track your progress using different tools or apps, such as calendars, journals, or logs to keep track of your goals and see which system works best for you.
Ask for help. It’s normal to need help along your journey. Sometimes goals fail simply because one doesn’t ask for help and tries to do everything alone. Having a little help might bring success! You may need an entire support network behind you to achieve your goal or just another person to be an accountability partner. This could be friends, family, coworkers, a therapist, or coach. Asking for help can help you achieve your goals faster and make the entire process easier as you work toward your resolution.
Be prepared for setbacks. Achieving any goal is rarely a smooth process. There will be bad days with poor results, and it may feel like a failure. Rather than reject your goal when the going gets tough, be prepared for failures. Have a plan in place to deal with failure and frustration. You might call a friend or remind yourself of the purpose of achieving the goal. Reviewing your success so far can also help revive your motivation. Since some setbacks are inevitable, it helps to have a backup plan.
Feel free to adjust goals. Your present life is constantly affecting your mindset and the way you perceive things. You accumulate knowledge, wisdom, and experience over time which is going to affect your goals. You don’t have to stick with an old goal if it’s no longer what you want. Sometimes goals need to be changed and modified as you evolve as a person and realize that your earlier ambitions are not as relevant as before.
Stay aware of growth. Remember that you will continue to grow even if you don’t reach your goals. In some cases, failure may be a blessing because it teaches you valuable life lessons you wouldn’t have realized before. Allow those lessons to inform you as to what went wrong, so that you can learn from them and grow. It may mean trying again, in a different way, with a different approach, or tweaking your goals in some way. Failure isn’t the end, and you can always set new goals. Rather, it’s more important to grow and become stronger than to reach every goal on your list.
Accept yourself for who you are. Oftentimes people set goals to improve themselves or a part of their lives in some way because they do not feel they are okay. Wanting to improve some area of your life and having goals of self-improvement are good to have. But that should not come from a place of self-dislike or self-deficiency. It’s important to accept yourself where you are while also having goals for self-improvement. You can be happy with yourself, enjoy your life, while also asking yourself, “How can I improve myself?”
Following these tips for successful goal setting can help you achieve a better version of yourself and help you align your life with your goals. In this 2-part blog series, San Francisco CBT Series: Successful Goal Setting, Part 1 and Part 2, I shared with you how to set SMART goals, and I gave you tips to setting your mindset and taking the right action to make your goals a success. It’s not always easy but continuing this path can bring you the change you desire.
You don’t have to do it alone.
These goal setting techniques I shared with you are what I use in therapy as I help my clients reach their goals. People have goals such as improving their communication in their relationships, changing the way they react to stressful situations, reducing depression and anxiety, reducing their use of alcohol or drugs, getting into a romantic relationship, or overcoming social anxiety. You can have any type of goal, and as your therapist, I can help you structure your goals in a better way, provide you support and accountability to meeting your goals, and help you learn the hidden lessons when you feel stuck.
FREE consultation for anxiety therapy in San Francisco, California
Successful goal setting is an important part of self-growth for any working professional, leader, or parent. I’m a San Francisco psychologist and I want to help you make the positive changes you want to see in yourself. Contact me for a free 15-minute phone consultation. We can talk about the goals you have in mind, and what you need.
Specialties include Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Therapy for depression, anxiety, work stress, relationships, and life changes.
In Case You Missed It! Additional Blog Posts in this series:
San Francisco CBT Series: Successful Goal Setting, Part 1
San Francisco CBT Series: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Part 2
San Francisco CBT Series: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Part 1
