Examples Of Specific & Challenging Goal Setting

One of the most common questions people have about goal setting is how many goals should you set.

Some believe you should set lots of goals in different areas of your life, whilst others believe you should set only a few goals in certain and specific areas of your life.

The truth is, how many goals a person should set is entirely up to them. The important thing is that they are comfortable setting those goals, and feel they can accomplish them.

However it should be noted that if you set too few goals, you might find that those goals do not keep you occupied or challenged enough.

Whilst setting too many goals, can leave a person feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin.

So it is generally recommended to set goals in the areas of your life that are most important to you right now, and then add more goals as you complete them.

Whatever you feel comfortable with will be the right number for you, because this will vastly increase your chances of successful goal setting.

If you are looking for a number to use as a guideline, then setting 5 goals is a good number to begin with.

In addition to this it is also worth mentioning the intensity of the goals you set, or how challenging they are. As you will see later on in this goal setting article, this is another extremely important factor in successfully setting goals.

Specific Goal Setting

Goal setting should ideally be as specific as possible, because if the goals you set are vague, then it becomes difficult knowing exactly what you are trying to achieve, how you are going to achieve it and whether you have achieved it or not.

For example, suppose you are selling your guitar on eBay and you set a goal to get as much money as you can. Whilst this may be what you hope to achieve, it is not a specific goal.

Rather it would be better to set a goal where you define exactly how much you would like to sell your guitar for. For example, I want to sell my guitar for £100.

By setting such a specific goal, it becomes obvious once you succeed in meeting your target.

How To Set Specific Goals

If you unsure how to set specific goals, try thinking to yourself what do I want to get or achieve? And then keep asking yourself specific questions until you get a specific answer.

Let’s have a look at a quick example of how to start this specific goal setting process.

• I want to get rid of my guitar because I don’t use it anymore.

• I want to sell my guitar and make some money.

• I want to sell it on eBay.

• I want to get as much money as I can.

• I want to get £100 for it.

• I want to get £100 for it excluding delivery, eBay and paypal fees.

Through this specific goal setting process you can now set a clearly defined goal because you know exactly what you want to achieve.

Challenging Goal Setting

Another vital ingredient of the goal setting process is to set goals that challenge you. Goals that motivate you to achieve more than you currently have and pull you outside your comfort zone.

For example, if you are trying to sell your laptop for £300 and laptops like yours normally sell for £300, then this would not be a challenging goal because you are doing what can easily be done.

An example of a challenging goal would be to sell your laptop for £350, because you are going above the average of what is expected.

Realistic Goal Setting

However whilst all goals should challenge you somewhat, it is equally as important to make those goals realistic.

An example of goal setting that is not realistic would be to try and sell your laptop for £500, when its normal price is £300.

The reason you want any goal setting you do to be realistic is because if you set your goal too high, and fail to achieve it, you are likely to become discouraged and demotivated and so will probably give up on goal setting entirely.

Conversely, if you set your goals too low, such as selling your laptop for £100, then you may also become discouraged from goal setting.

This is because if your goals are too low, you won’t get a sense of satisfaction from their completion. As a result, you won’t become motivated to continue setting goals.

Become A Goal Setting Addict

A good way to help you remember the importance of setting the right goals, is to think of the goal setting process like a drug.

The more pleasure you get from completing your goals (the satisfaction that comes from completing challenging realistic goals), the more you will want to keep on setting goals.

The less pleasure you get from setting goals (through setting either goals that don’t challenge you enough, or unrealistic goals), the less likely you will be to continue goal setting.

This is why at the start of this article I said that it is important for you to feel comfortable about goal setting, because once you feel comfortable with the process, you will keep doing it.

Note: By comfortable I mean happy with process. Doing it in a way that is right for you.