A way of life
The key to successfully reaching your goals is to make goal setting a regular part of your life. The question is: what is the best amount of time to leave between setting your goals and checking to see if you have succeeded in reaching them? There are a number of different time lines for setting your goals, I prefer weekly goals for a few reasons. Let’s take a look at some of the different time frames:
Too long and too short
A year or more goals: I tend to classify these types of goals as a future vision as opposed to a goal. These are big goals that consist of lots of different steps, in most cases, too many steps to think about all at once. These goals are important, but can be broken down into parts that are easier to deal with in more reasonable time frames.
Monthly goals: these goals give too much time from setting the goals to measuring the success at reaching them. The benefits of achieving them take too long to be realized and can result in losing focus. Lost focus usually results in lost goals.
Daily goals: these goals are unhelpful for the opposite reason of monthly goals: the time frame is too fast, achieving daily goals feels rushed, and too much can happen in a given day to disrupt your ability to reach the goals you have set.
Just right
Weekly goals: Weekly goals provide a nice mix between the monthly and daily time frames. You get to evaluate your success at reaching your goals within seven days, helping you stay motivated over the shorter time frame. However, a week is slow enough that a disruption one day leaves you with enough time to recover later in the week.
The key is to have enough time to reasonably reach your goals, but not so much time that you get bored due to lack of results, and lose focus. I think a week is perfect. It optimizes the probability that you will succeed in your goals and stops you from setting yourself up to fail.
What time frame do you set your goals in? Why does it work for you? Give weekly goals a try and let me know how it turns out.
Want to be even more successful with your goal achievement? Then add some accountability to your goal setting.
Y’know, I never thought of goal setting in the way of “What time frame works best?” Of course, I set daily/weekly/monthly/yearly goals, but now that I think about it, you’re totally right – weekly goals work best. Maybe that’s why most coaching sessions occur weekly, since it’s just enough time to give yourself a homework assignment or two & get ‘em done. Daily goals usually put a bunch of pressure on me. Monthly goals aren’t broken down well enough, and yearly goals seem oh so far away!
I’m definitely gonna concentrate on weekly goals from now on.
Michelle,
I love the energy you put into these time frame ideas. Daily goals putting pressure on us is a perfect way to think about it, and the main reason I think they cause so many people stress.
I would love to know how focusing on weekly goals works for you. Let me know.
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Very good point about setting goals in time frames. I am very goal orient. Setting goals gives me direction and a purpose. Successfully achieving goals builds self esteem and self confidence. At http://determined2.com Interactivity that promotes successful pursuit of life goals.
Your sight looks interesting, I will check it out.
Jeremie
I have been browsing throught your site. I find it very informative and very helpful. Great info…
Thanks
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