Learning to set and achieve goals will be a tremendous boost to improving your focus. Many people shy away from goal-setting because they believe that it’s difficult and time-consuming or that it’s simply a complete waste of time. In reality, setting goals can be simple, and once you’ve accomplished a few, the feeling of success can become addictive in driving you toward more and better. Achieving goals is a great motivator because it offers you an opportunity to celebrate your success and reward yourself for a job well done. Goals provide structure and frame for your focus to take root and grow.
There’s an old saying: you can’t hit a target you can’t see. This statement is especially true when applied to the concept of goal-setting. If you have a goal, say losing five pounds by the end of the month, but you have no plan or action steps for reaching that goal, then you are not likely to hit the target. In reality, you haven’t set a goal at all—you simply have a dream that is vague and hazy and thus will never be reached.
“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Anthony Robbins
Make Goals Concrete
A study conducted by Gail Matthews at California’s Dominican University demonstrates the effectiveness of making goals concrete. She requested her study participants to put their personal goal in writing and keep it where they could see them often, at least daily. She discovered that her subjects were 42% more likely to achieve their goal when it was written down. The act of writing the words cements the purpose in our mind.
Setting a goal brings clarity to our desires and gives direction to our thoughts and actions, even when we aren’t consciously focusing on it. Our intent remains active in the back of the mind, influencing our choices and setting us up for success. For example, if you were hungry and you saw your weight loss goal stuck to the refrigerator door as you went in for a snack, it would likely prompt you to choose a piece of fruit or a hard-boiled egg instead of a handful of cookies. In the moment, you may not be conscious of the reason for your choice, but your subconscious is nudging you toward success.
Matthews further found that when her subjects shared their goal and kept their supportive friends updated on their progress, they did even better. Setting a goal, writing it down, and making it public requires us to be accountable. Most people don’t like to disappoint others (or themselves), so having a small measure of accountability acts as a motivator to stick with the program. This concept is the foundation for programs like Weight Watchers, where progress tracking and sincere support are key factors in reaching a weight management goal. Weight Watchers also rewards members for their progress by celebrating achievements publicly, thereby reinforcing positive behavior and providing incentives for members just beginning their weight loss journey.
Your Immediate Environment
Even with our stated goal in hand, most of us have the freedom to make a wide range of choices at any given moment. This can create havoc with achieving goals because researchers have found that we often make decisions based on our immediate environment.
Our default decision plays an important role to support our goals. If you keep your smartphone next to your bed, checking email or social media as soon as you wake up is likely to be your default decision. Keeping alcohol in the house is likely to make drinking consistently a default decision. Therefore, in light of meeting our goals, it makes sense to set up our environment to support achievement.
Using the example of losing five pounds, how can we set up our immediate environment in a way that supports our goal? We can stock the kitchen with a variety of healthy snacks. We can spend a weekend afternoon preparing nourishing meals for the week ahead so we don’t end up making a last-minute fast food run because there’s “nothing good” in the house. Placing the dog’s leash in plain sight serves as a reminder for us to get out and get moving instead of plopping down on the couch with a bowl of buttery popcorn. Placing a set of hand weights next to the TV reminds us that we can multitask by doing bicep curls while watching our favorite show.
Whatever your goals are, there are at least five ways you can tailor your environment to assist with them, whether it be through reminders (posters, alarms), making actions more difficult or easy (only healthy food, a “no elevators” rule), or switching environments altogether (going to the office, getting a desk too small to hold snacks).
Set a Realistic Time Frame
“A goal is a DREAM with a deadline.” – Napoleon Hill
Turning a daydream into a goal doesn’t have to be a prolonged undertaking. The quicker you can get it done, the better. Accomplishing a series of small goals reassures us that we are both competent and capable. But sometimes, especially when we feel unsure of our ability, we con ourselves into believing that a goal will require much more time than is realistic. That’s when Parkinson’s Law comes into play.
British historian Cyril Parkinson developed his theory during a stint with the British Civil Service. He observed that as the bureaucracy expanded it became less and less efficient, leading him to postulate that “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” In other words, the more time you allot for a task, the longer it will require.
Parkinson found that even a series of simple tasks were perceived to increase in complexity when an excessive amount of time was allotted for completion. He further observed that even though there might not be enough actual work to fill the time, anxiety and tension about having to do the work expanded significantly. A great amount of energy was spent worrying about the work, not actually doing the work! By contrast, when a shorter amount of time was prescribed, efficiency increased and tasks were completed with far less stress. (Excerpt is from ‘The Science of Powerful Focus’ by Peter Hollins).
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