Why should you bother with goal setting at all? Wouldn’t it be more convenient to just get on with your daily objectives, follow a dream or vision, and let life take you wherever?
While that road can feel exciting and spontaneous, if you actually want to tick off things from your list of goals to achieve, learning how to set goals is necessary.
Being committed to a goal puts your brain to work in one specific direction. Believe it or not, by having a defined goal, your brain does its magic unconsciously, 24/7, with full efficiency, to achieve the desired results[2].
Goal setting is important to shift your focus, boost your motivation, and give you a sense of direction. Without formally defining a particular aim that you want to reach, you won’t be able to keep your objectives in line.
Hence, this one tiny step can end up saving you a lot of hassle and time while also encouraging your productivity.
Types of Goals
Before we move onto the technique of setting effective goals, we need to first take a look at all types of goals in this goal-setting tips guide.
These categories will not just help you brainstorm new one for yourself, but it will also guide you to list them down in the right way.
Time-Based
One of the two broad categories of goals is based on time. These goals define how far in the future you want to achieve them.
Daily
There are certain smaller goals that you can easily achieve in a day or two. In fact, some of these daily goals can be recurring, too. For example, you may want to run for an hour every morning.
Now, these daily goals can also serve as objectives for a long-term goal. You may be running every day because, in the long-term, you want to increase your stamina.
Daily goals are highly effective for people who want to improve their mental wellbeing, time management skills, and stress management.
Short-Term
Next in line are short-term goals. As you would have already guessed, goal setting in this area is aimed at the near future.
The great thing about these is that they are generally easier to achieve. This is because short-term goals are set for the foreseeable future. You are aware of the circumstances and have a general idea of how much the situation can change.
Just like daily goals, short-term goals may also serve as objectives for a long-term goal. Your short-term goal may be to lose 5 pounds in one month. That could be a goal in itself, or maybe it is just one objective to fulfill your goal to adopt a healthy lifestyle in the next two years.