The World's Best (Free) Guide to Goal Setting - HappierHuman

Dream big dreams; only big dreams have the power to move men?s souls.

-Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome

It?s a paradox. It?s the big goals that excite us and get us to stop hitting the snooze button. They make us feel alive. They make the boring interesting, and the frustrating exciting.

But it?s the big goals that are the least likely to end up accomplished.

After a short burst of energy, the excitement and interest fizzles. And then, maybe, you get excited once again. And then, just like last time, after a short burst of energy, the excitement fizzles and takes you back to where you started, with little or no progress to show for it.

For much of my life, I?ve set only realistic goals. Goals that could be easily accomplished. After all, what?s the point of dreaming big if the obvious result is failure?

But I?ve gotten greedy. I?d rather get work done AND feel inspired.

I don?t want to have just enough motivation to get by. I want as much as possible. More motivation equals more energy and more life.

Are you greedy too?

Do you want more accomplishment, more energy, more happiness, more life?

Then welcome to the world?s best free guide to goal setting.

Goal setting?

I know, doesn?t sound like much.

I?ve read the advice before. I?m sure you have too. I wasn?t impressed.

I?ve had to set SMART at work. Maybe you?ve had to too. It worked? but only a little.

What are SMART goals?

SMART is an acronym.

Letter	Word	Meaning
S	Specific	Goal is distinct and unambiguous.
M	Measurable	Progress can be measured.
A	Attainable	Objective is realistic.
R	Relevant	Goal provides a reward which is valuable.
T	Time-bound	A deadline has been set.

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The idea goes, follow these guidelines in setting up your goal, and you?ll be maximizing your chances for success. This process is often used at work, for example, requiring employees to set SMART goals during their annual review, and then reviewing progress the following year.

But here?s the thing: SMART goals are a simplification. They were designed to be used in an organizational setting, to help bosses prod their employees into action. They?re often used for personal improvement, but only because most people think goal setting starts and ends with SMART.

It doesn?t.

SMART goals came into being in 1981. That?s 32 years ago. I promise you, motivation science has come a long way since then.

That?s why I wrote this guide to goal setting ? to help increase your chances for success, for whatever your goals happen to be.

Achievement is fun. More importantly, I consider motivation a terminal value ? something desirable in and of itself. Even if nothing else changed, I?d rather be more excited than less.

Motivation === Energy === Life

Effective goal setting is no panacea, but done correctly, can tip the odds.

In the words of Piers Steel, one of the world?s best procrastination scientists:

Goal setting ? proper goal setting ? is the smartest thing you can do to battle procrastination. Though every other technique discussed so far has its place, goal setting alone may be all you need. Regardless of what other books say, this is what?s proven to maximize your motivation.

And when he says proven, he means proven. The Law of Attraction sounds nice, but I?d take replicable experiment over wishful thinking any day of the week.

Effective goal setting has helped people eat less, type faster, save more, study harder, score higher, lift heavier, write longer, work better, sell quicker and much more.^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ,11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57}

So it should come as no surprise that tens of thousands of people have spent thousands of dollars each to have their hands held through the process. Effective goal setting is that valuable.

Tony Robbins to the rescue.

A few weeks ago, I listened to a Tony Robbins video for the first time in my life. Just an hour. I was pleasantly surprised ? some of the things he talked about were beyond goofy, like?Q-Links, but underneath the?excitement was some good advice.

The seminar I saw a video of was essentially a really expensive goal setting workshop. Why were people willing to spend thousands of dollars for something they could have gotten from a book? The energy and encouragement.

Without those things, most goal setting advice is useless, intellectually understood but unimplemented.

Goal setting is extremely effective, but because of its unnaturalness, appears boring and tedious.

Goals should be written down.

I?ve read and heard that advice before. I never listened.

Oh no, it?s okay. I?ll just say it aloud in my head.

No. It?s hard to quantify, but across a number of studies, those who wrote their goal down were significantly (as in 2 to 3x) more likely to reach their upper limits.

The first time I finally got around to actually writing something down, I had to spend an hour getting pumped up by reading an inspiring book.

I?m lazy. That?s human nature. That?s okay, we can work around that problem.

Over the next two weeks, I?ll introduce you to the nine critical components of effective goal setting.

At the end of each post, you?ll see a quick and easy question. Take the time to answer and you?ll increase your chances for success.

Ignore them or answer in your head, and you?ll be only slightly closer to achieving your goal.

But I?m a realist. At the end of each post, I?ve got what will hopefully do for you what that inspiring book did for me and what Tony Robbins does for his customers. Go through it, and once you feel sufficiently excited, answer the question. If the inspiration box doesn?t help, tell me what would, and I?ll do my best to provide it.

Think of one long-term dream, desire or goal which excites you. If nothing comes to mind, keep thinking until something does. What did you pick? Scroll down and type it out!

Inspiration Box

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• Latham 1974 ? 1 day goal setting workshop given to 20 tree loggers increased productivity over the following 3 months, valued at a quarter-million dollars.
• Cambell 1976 ? Chess players given a hard goal were more likely to successfully complete higher-level chess problems.
• Ivancevish 1976 ? Sales personal given training in goal setting sold more.
• Becker 1978 ? Two groups of people given goals on conserving energy. Those given the easy goal did no different, while those given the hard goal cut household energy expenditure by 14% over the duration of the study.
• Latham 1978 ? Typists given hard goals increased their performance.
• Latham 1982 ? 39 truck drivers were assigned goals. Over the following four months, their performance increased, being valued at $2.7 million dollars.
• Reber 1990 ? Factory workers walked through a goal setting workshop and provided feedback increased safety compliance from around 50% to almost 100%.
• Rothman 2005 ? Smokers helped in setting quit goals were almost twice as likely to have abstained after a quit attempt. This held true even after 18 months.
• Seo 2009 ? Students walked through the goal setting process were less likely to procrastinate.

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Read Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation: A 35-Year Odyssey for more.

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

-Napolean Hill

All who have accomplished great things have had a great aim, have fixed their gaze on a goal which was high, one which sometimes seemed impossible.

-Orison Marden

Failures do what is tension relieving, while winners do what is goal achieving.

-Dennis Waitley

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.

-Dennis Waitley

Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.

-Brian Tracy

If you don?t know where you are going, you?ll end up someplace else.

-Yogi Berra

In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.

-Unknown

The person with a fixed goal, a clear picture of his desire, or an ideal always before him, causes it, through repetition, to be buried deeply in his subconscious mind and is thus enabled, thanks to its generative and sustaining power, to realize his goal.

-Claude M. Bristol

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Failure is not reaching your goal, but in having no goal to reach.

-Benjamin Mays

Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success.

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David Joseph Schwartz

The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don?t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.

-Denis Watley

The higher goal a person pursues, the quicker his ability develops, and the more beneficial he will become to the society. I believe for sure that this is also a truth.

-Maksim Gorky

?If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.

-Andrew Carnegie

If you?re bored with life ? you don?t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things ? you don?t have enough goals.

-Lou Holtz

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.

-Tony Robbins

The last three or four reps is what makes the muscle grow. This area of pain divides the champion from someone else who is not a champion. That?s what most people lack, having the guts to go on and just say they?ll go through the pain no matter what happens.

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

The only limitations one has, are the ones they place on themselves.

-Muhammad Ali

Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people.

-Nido Qubein

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.

-Robert Collier

Pain makes me grow. Growing is what I want. Therefore, for me pain is pleasure.

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life.

-Edward B. Butler

If we each get on a treadmill right now, one of two things is going to happen? either you?re going to get off first or I am going to die. Period.

-Will Smith

A year from now you will wish you had started today.

-Karen Lamb

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

-Neale Donald Walsch

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

-Vince Lombardi

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

-Bruce Lee

Just do it.

-Nike

If you don?t do what?s best for your body, you?re the one who comes up on the short end.

-Julius Erving

If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.

-Jim Eason

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She?s 97 today and we don?t know where the hell she is.

-Ellen Degeneres

Take care of your body. It?s the only place you have to live.

-Jim Rohn

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, and then work hard toward that goal, we never lose, somehow, we win out.

-Ronald Reagan

I like thinking big. If you?re going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.

-Donald Trump

Lazy men are soon poor; hard workers get rich. A wise youth makes hay while the sun shines, but what a shame to see a lad who sleeps away his hour of opportunity.

-The Living Bible

An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.

-Brian Tracy

The man says, ?If I had a fortune, I?d take good care of it. But I only have a paycheck and I don?t know where it all goes.? Wouldn?t you love to have him running your company?

-Jim Rohn

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.

-Dale Carnegie

A year from now you will wish you had started today.

-Karen Lamb

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous and unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

-Henry Miller

Wealth depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both.

-Benjamin Franklin

Something in human nature causes us to start slacking off at our moment of greatest accomplishment. As you become successful, you will need a great deal of self-discipline not to lose your sense of balance, humility, and commitment.

-Ross Perot

The art is not in making money, but in keeping it.

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

-Thomas Edison

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.

-Ben Franklin

When I was young I thuoght that money was the most important thing in life; now that I?m old I know it is.

-Oscar Wilde

It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.

-Margaret Thatcher

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

-J.R.R. Tolkien

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, and insist upon it.

- Elizabeth Gilbert

It?s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.

- L.M. Montgomery

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

-George Burns

Tell the negativity committee that meets inside your head to sit down and shut up.?

-Ann Bradford

A bad attitude is like a flat tire, you can?t get very far until you change it.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design into the present.

-Jim Rohn

Life is not about making others happy. Life is about sharing your happiness with others.

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, you do have a pretty big problem.

-Richard Bach

Someone else is happy with far less than what you have.

Talk about your blessings more than you talk about your problems.

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

-James M. Barrie

I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.

-Martha Washington

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

-Abraham Lincoln

Happiness is not a feeling, it is a choice.

Return to top.

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Next post tomorrow. Be sure to answer the question!

Think of one long-term dream, desire or goal which excites you. If nothing comes to mind, keep thinking until something does. What did you pick? Scroll down and type it out!

References

1. The Importance of Union Acceptance for Productivity Improvement Through Goal Setting, 1982.
2. Improving Job Performance Through Training in Goal Setting, 1975
3. Effects of Assigned and Participative Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976.
4. Effects of Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976.
5. The Role of Proximal Intentions in Self-Regulation of Refractory Behavior, 1977.
6. Different Goal Setting Treatments and Their Effects on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1997.
7. Additive Effects of Task Difficulty and Goal Setting on Subsequent Task Performance, 1976.
8. The Relationship of Procrastination With a Mastery Goal Versus an Avoidance Goal, 2009.
9. Joint Effect of Feedback and Goal Setting on Performance: A Field Study of Residential Energy Conservation, 1978.
10. The Effects of Goal Setting and Self-Instruction Training on The Performance of Unionized Employees, 2000.
11. Expectancy Theory Predictions of Salesmen?s Performance, 1974.
12. Integrating Theories of Motivation, 2006.
13. Motivation Theory, Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1990.
14. Self-Efficacy and Resource Allocation Support For a Nonmonotonic, Discontinuous Model, 2008.
15. Vroom?s Expectancy Models and Work-Related Criteria: A Meta-Analysis
16. The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice, 1981.
17. The Power of Reframing Incentives: Field Experiment on (Students?) Productivity, 2008.
18. Evaluation Anxiety. Handbook of Competence and Motivation, 2005.
19. Goal Selection and Goal Striving. Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology, 2001.
20. The Procrastination Equation: How to Stop Putting Things Off and Start Getting Stuff Done, 2010.
21. Goal Setting and Task Performance, 1980
22. Building a Practically Useful Theory of Goal Setting and Task Motivation, 2002.
23. The Hierarchical Model of Approach-Avoidance Motivation, 2006.
24. Avoidance Goals Can Be Beneficial: A Look at Smoking Cessation, 2005.
25. A 2 x 2 Achievement Goal Framework, 2001.
26. Improving Safety Performance With Goal Setting and Feedback, 1990.
27. Changes in Performance in a Management by Objectives Program, 1974.
28. Assigned Versus Participative Goal Setting With Educated and Uneducated Woods Workers, 1975.
29. Effects of Goal Setting on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1976 (sales personnel).
30. Effect of Performance Feedback and Goal Setting on Productivity and Satisfaction in an Organizational Setting, 1976.
31. The Role of Proximal Intentions in Self-Regulation of Refractory Behavior, 1977.
32. Performance Standards and Implicit Goal Setting: Field Testing Locke?s Assumption, 1977.
33. Blue Collar to Top Executive, 1977 (ship loading).
34. Different Goal Setting Treatments and Their Effects on Performance and Job Satisfaction, 1977 (maintenance technicians).
35. Personal Correspondence With Piers Steel.
36. Increasing Productivity With Decreasing Time Limits: A Field Replication of Parkinson?s Law, 1975.
37. Interrelationships Among Employee Participation, Individual Differences, Goal Difficulty, Goal Acceptance, Goal Instrumentality, and Performance, 1978.
38. A Study of The Effects of Task Goal and Schedule Choice on Work Performance, 1979.
39. Knowledge of Score and Goal Level as Determinants of Work Rate, 1969.
40. Studies of The Relationship Between Satisfaction, Goal Setting, and Performance, 1970.
41. The Effects of Participation in Goal Setting on Goal Acceptance and Performance, 1975.
42. A Two-Factor Model of The Effect of Goal-Descriptive Directions on Learning From Text, 1975.
43. Additive Effects of Task Difficulty and Goal Setting on Subsequent Task Performance 1976.
44. Role of Performance Goals in Prose Learning, 1976).
45. The Motivational Strategies Used by Supervisors: Relationships to Effectiveness Indicators, 1976.
46. Effects Achievement Standards, Tangible Rewards, and Self-Dispensed Achievement Evaluations on Children?s Task Mastery, 1977.
47. Systems Analysis of Dyadic Interaction: Prediction From Individual Parameters, 1978 .
48. The Interaction of Ability and Motivation in Performance: An Exploration of The Meaning of Moderators, 1978.
49. Effects of Goal Level on Performance: A Trade-off of Quantity and Quality, 1978.
50. Importance of Supportive Relationships in Goal Setting, 1979.
51. The Effects of Holding Goal Difficulty Constant on Assigned and Participatively Set Goals, 1979.
52. The Effect of Beliefs on Maximum Weight-Lifting Performance, 1979.
53. Another Look at The Relationship of Expectancy and Goal Difficulty to Task Performance, 1980.
54. Performance and Learning Goals for Emotion Regulation, 2011.
55. Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change, 1976.
56. Goal Setting as a Motivator of Unethical Behavior, 2004.
57. The Relationship of Team Goals, Incentives and Efficacy to Strategic Risk, Tactical Implementation and Performance, 2001

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