What’s the point of your goal?
Time to read: 4 minutes
Hi Reader
I’ve always been pretty good at setting goals to focus my efforts. And those goals used to always be about the achievement:
- Get promoted to a role
- Deliver a project or programme
- Develop a new skills
- That kind of stuff….
The trouble is, the achievement didn’t always feel as good as I’d expected. It was even disappointing sometimes.
And that’s not what achieving goals was supposed to feel like!
Maybe you’ve been there too.
You set an ambitious goal. You worked hard to reach it, then ultimately succeeded. But it felt underwhelming. Maybe even anticlimactic. So you pushed on and went for that next goal. But how do we know the cycle won’t repeat?
This week we’re going to explore what’s at play, so you can avoid this happening to you.
(Or maybe stop it from happening again.)
So what's missing?
I’d worked hard for a new role - a move within a great company. I’d done all the right things, had all the right conversations and I landed it. Hurrah!
Then about 6 weeks in, I was already starting to get that underwhelming sensation again. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the job, or the people I was working with. I just wasn’t feeling it.
So this time, I took stock of what I’d learned through my experiences and all I’d read about personal development and achievement.
I realised my goals - including this particular move - had all been focused on the moment of success.
But I hadn’t stopped to think about one crucial thing: The impact of my goal.
The bit that happens after the goal is achieved. The bit you live with.
The three parts of a goal
When we boil it down, there are only really three parts to a goal:
- The things leading up to the goal
- The moment of success
- The outcomes that come from reaching the goal
When you focus on the moment of success, you’re only considering a fleeting point in time.
Yes, it can feel great to get that achievement or recognition. But for most, if not all goals, you’ll spend way more time on the path to it. And the rest of your life happens after the moment you’ve achieved the goal.
So let’s expand our thinking…
Understanding what you really want
Goals are really an expression of a desired future state. So the art is understanding what that future state means to you.
Take my examples from earlier:
- Getting the promotion? What would it unlock that I didn’t already have?
- Delivering the programme? What was the change that we’d all get from it?
- Acquiring the skill? How would I use it to good effect?
One of the simplest ways to start uncovering this is to add “so that…”, when you write down your goal.
“I want to achieve
Now we’re starting to get somewhere.
But you've got to dig deep. Be really honest about what you’re striving for and why. It’s very rarely the surface-level reason.
If you want a great example, yesterday I posted about a whole load of factors why someone might really want a promotion. I listed 9 but I could have listed 30 or more. And it resonated, so it’s well worth reading the comments if you missed it.
Post: What if, deep down, you don’t really want the promotion?
The point is, one goal could have a multitude of subtle reasons for it. So dig in, be completely honest, and work out what they are for you and your goal. You might be surprised.
(By the way, this is also a great step to help avoid misaligned goals. But that’s one for another edition.)
Don’t forget the journey
In our race to reach the goal we might also disregard the path we’re going to take.
But, when we’re clear on the outcome we’re looking for, something interesting can happen.
We start to realise there are more ways to reach that outcome. It won’t be a singular path. It might not even need the goal we first thought of.
Let’s expand on our promotion example:
Original Goal: You want a promotion
Underlying Desired Impact: You want more influence in your company
Other ways you could have more influence:
- Be more open with your manager & team
- Tackle the big problem that nobody’s addressing
- Network & collaborate with others
- Improve your communication
- Share your thought leadership
- Speak up more in meetings
- Get involved in new projects
And there might be many more depending on the type of influence you’re looking to have.
You’ve now at least got several things to try out the path to the promotion, which will help prove your abilities. You might even realise you can have all the influence you need from the role you’re in. And then you reach your desired impact much more quickly.
And while we’ve used promotion as an example, you can follow this thought process for any goal:
- The consultant who wants to reposition their offer, because they really want more satisfaction from their gigs.
- The senior leader who wants to change career paths, as they actually want to do more purposeful work.
- The technical lead who wants the pay rise, because they want to feel more valued for all the hard work they’re doing.
They each have multiple options that would achieve the impact that they want from the goal.
Wrap up
When you look beyond the immediate point of success of a goal, you open up a whole new way of thinking.
You’ll be clear on the reason for your goal - the impact you want it to have. And you’ll start to see other ways to get that impact too. That might just reshape the whole goal and your journey to get there.
So let me leave you with this question:
How clear is the impact that you want from your biggest goal?
Find that clarity and you’ll see your goal in a whole new way.
Before you go, I’ve got a quick question about your network.
I’m working on a new Ambition Accelerator
I’d love to speak to 3 ambitious, purposeful leaders or consultants who want to maximise their personal impact. They’ll have already had success in their career and know they’re destined for more impact, but they can’t quite unlock it.
The Ambition Accelerator will cover my fundamentals of personal growth in a small group setting over 3 months. It’ll give them the charity, confidence and control to move forward with a plan to help them achieve their full potential and purposeful impact.
Do you know someone in your network who might be interested?
Don’t share their name with me without their permission. But please ask them to get in touch for a chat. They can drop me an email or book a catch-up call. Thanks!
Thanks for reading. Stay ambitious.
Rob
Sparked Ambition Ltd
linkedin.com/in/robstubbs
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