Setting Meaningful Goals for Ourselves

Knowing your why is crucial for generating awesome results.

Every company needs to have the vision to know where it is heading, and the same goes for the people behind it. Without a strong one, it will be almost impossible to achieve anything remarkable.

A vision lays down the pathway for the future and helps to make the next decisions easier. With one there will no longer be a reason to debate every issue that comes in front of us. Instead, one can look back to the vision and ask whether the new opportunity at hand helps them to go forward or not.

At the same time, it is important to divide the big vision into a bunch of smaller goals. Such that are easy to describe and measure.

Although we can remind ourselves of the big idea daily, then the smaller ones are actionable now. Especially when they are as precise as possible.

But let’s be clear - not all the goals are always achieved. Thus one can even ask why to bother setting them in the first place. Or as once said by someone: “Achieving one's goals means they were small in the first place. Whereas not achieving them makes us sad. So why set them at all?”

Regardless, we need those goals to remind ourselves why we are doing anything and where do we want to end up. So even if it takes longer to achieve some of them, or if we end up with more in the end - we need those to get where we are heading.

How to set the goals?

Lately, I have felt somewhat lost. Ever since leaving my full-time position at Robotex, I have been in a search mode. Trying to find another big vision to follow. Because for the last two years it was all about the #50000Robots. And now I have to come up with a new vision for myself, and for us. Plus, add measurable goals.

In essence, I already have some of it set. I know I need to continue being a great husband, son, brother, friend and a future father. Meanwhile, Lele and I have decided to set up a boutique agency for emerging tech companies. But something has still been missing. And it seems that it is because we have not written our life’s vision down, nor have we added the measurable goals.

Based on my experience, and lots of reading, I know that for effective goal setting all need to be on a paper. This means that nothing works better than writing down the vision and the goals as an easy to read text. Additionally, using pictures next to the text helps to visualise everything further.

But how to know what to write down? In our case, we will be following the next plan:

Brainstorm - Write down every thought, including the silly ones. Preferably on sticky notes (one idea per note). This helps one to free the mind and get all the important ones out there. Doing this first alone works better because then there will be no fear while writing them down.

Analyse - Take a look at all the ideas and set those aside that does not feel like a real thing. For the remaining, think how important they are, how likely it is to achieve them and how long could it take. Based on that, decide which ones to keep. Again, I would first do it alone and then together with the other people to get the truth out there.

Describe - Once the ideas are set and decided, describe them in detail. The main idea of this is to create a visual image for yourself that can really be felt and imagined. From now on, involve everyone at the same time, so that the goals would feel like they belong to everyone.

Add dates - Goals without clear deadlines are just wishes and do not work as a motivator tool. Therefore it is important to write down the time by which they should be achieved. This can later be changed if the deadline is not met, however, at first one should work to make it in time.

Visualise - In the end, try to visualise everything in pictures. This helps us keep it all clear for times when we need to go back at the goals to remind ourselves where we are heading.