Goal Setting: A Clever Cactus Guide

“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

I feel like I’ve had goals my whole life. Only I used to call them “my dreams” or “what I’ll do when I’m older” or “this vague sense that I should do X because of Reasons”. I chased these elusive dreams down the best way I knew how – by bouncing between them like a pinball on a winning streak. Only I wasn’t winning. If anything, I was flailing about and starting projects I’d never finish, with very little to show for my efforts.

It was only once I started digging into goal-setting theory, productivity “hacks” and other organizational systems that I realized what I had were, actually and always, Big Goals. Simply naming that invisible force constantly propelling me forward made all the difference. Understanding why goals are so important in my life (which I detail in this post) inspired me to, well, do better. I tried out different goal-setting guides, day planners, agendas, apps, the works, to develop the system I use today.

Read on to find out how I set my goals up for success.

Step 1 – Name your Goal

There’s power in a name. In fact, in that earlier post I mentioned above, I reference a study by Dr. Gail Matthews that showed writing down a goal makes you more likely to succeed. The more specific you can be about your goals, the better.

In her article “The importance, Benefits, and Value of Goal Setting”, Leslie Riopel MSc shares Edward Locke and Gary Latham’s five goal-setting principles and professor Fred Lunenburg’s goal criteria. The five Goal-Setting Principles are clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback and task complexity. Lunenburg’s goal criteria are specificity, attainability and acceptance.

I’ve read through a lot of goal-setting advice, including the criteria outlined by Locke, Latham and Lunenburg (the three Ls! Four if you include me!). Here are the four things you definitely need to know about naming your goal.

Specific

“Setting goals that are clear and specific eliminate the confusion that occurs when a goal is set in a more generic manner,” explains Riopel. Avoid vague statements like “write more”. What are you writing? How much is “more”? Instead, set a daily habit or a measurable “number”. For example: “write 500 words a day”, “write 2000 words a month”, “finish one chapter a month.”

Personal

I’ve mentioned this about new year’s resolutions, and it applies here, too – your goal should be something YOU want to do. “If we are continually given goals by other people, and we don’t truly accept them, we will most likely continue to fail,” Riopel writes. When you truly want to do something, you’re more likely to succeed than if you’re doing it just for appearance sake or out of obligation.

Challenging

All goals should be a challenge. I personally don’t see the point in setting a goal if it ISN’T a challenge (but that could just be me). “Goals that are too simple may even cause us to give up,” Riopel explains. “Goals should be challenging enough to motivate us without causing us undue stress.”

Measurable

Setting a goal that you can measure helps see your progress and gives you a confidence boost as you’re working on it. Measurable data includes daily habit tracking, counts (ex. words, exercise reps, weight lifted, time spent, etc), visual progress (appearance, painting completion, redecorated rooms, etc.) or any other form of measurable and trackable data.

Step 2 – Give it substance

Now that you’ve identified your goals and named them, it’s time to give them substance. There are two parts to this – first, a defining statement; and second, a vision board.

The Defining Statement

Write down WHY you’ve set these goals. How will achieving this goal change and improve your life? What aspect of your life are you working on with this goal? Personal? Professional? Physical? Emotional? You don’t HAVE to be specific here; this can be where you put statements like “be happier” (though I suggest adding “with X, Y, and Z”). All you need do is be honest with yourself.

The Vision Board

Find photos, quotes, memes, colours, song lyrics – anything that embodies the essence of your goal. If your goal is to plan a vacation, this might be pictures of where you’d like to go. Want to try restaurants every month? Print out menus or top 10 restaurant lists and add them in there. Anything that makes you want to achieve your goal that much more. (If you don’t want to make a physical collage, Pinterest is a great vision board tool.)

Post It

Put your statement and vision board someplace you’ll look at often. This could be the wall behind your computer, an image on your computer desktop, a page in your planner (like the goals pages in the Clever Cactus planner!) Make it huge! Make it small! Whatever will make it catch your eye and keep it in your mind all year long.

Here’s why you should give your goals some substance:

1. You’ll hone in on the “what” and “why” of your goals before you start planning. Really get to the heart of why you want to do this. Explaining and visualizing it to yourself may even illuminate something about the goal you hadn’t consciously realized.
2. There will be moments when your motivation wans as you work towards your goals. It’s inevitable. Anytime that happens, you’ll be able to look at what initially moved you to take this on and all the inspirational imagery you’ve collected will keep you going.

Here’s how I break my goals down into the steps:

1. Grab scrap paper, a page in your My Notes section, or open a new document on your computer.
2. Write down everything you’ll need to do to accomplish your goal. Don’t worry about the order, we’ll sort things out later.
3. Make note of what you don’t know. What you need to research – perhaps you’ve decided to start a business but don’t know what, exactly, you need to do!
   If you have time right at that moment, do some preliminary research.
4. Add steps from your research to your list.
5. Review the list and group things together by priority, urgency, task relationships, themes – any other patterns you might find. (As you’re building the list, you’ll see the patterns emerge).
6. Rewrite (or reorganize, if you’re doing it digitally) the list grouped by priority/urgency first, followed by whatever other patterns you’ve made.

This list will be necessary in the next step and will be your road map for goal completion.

Method 1: All Dates, All the Time

1. Put your due date at the top of your list from step 3.
2. For each task, decide how long it will take. I like to give most tasks a week, just to allow myself some freedom.
3. Work backwards, adding dates up your list until everything has a due date.

Note: Any dates you add during this step are dates you’re aiming for, but if you miss them, it’s okay. These are guidelines more than anything.

Method 2: Only Milestones get Dates

1. Put a due date at the top of your list from step 3.
2. For each group of tasks, decide how long it will take. I like to give task groups a month, three-months or six-month intervals.
3. Work backwards, adding dates to each task group until every group has a date. These will be your milestones.
4. I highly suggest you add a “check in” date at the following intervals: One month, three months, six months, nine months and 12 months.

Daily

Richardson sets up measurable activities for his training schedule, like drills and skills, repetitions, conscious diet monitoring, a good sleep schedule and pre-rehabilitation work. In the Clever Cactus system, I call these the “daily habits”, and track them on the Tracking page of each monthly section (first one appears on page 26).

Weekly

Not every task needs to be done on a daily basis, but may benefit from a weekly frequency. The “Monday review” is one weekly task I highly recommend incorporating into your habitual life. During this review you’ll check your “Monthly” task list, review all your projects and make note of that week’s deadlines (maybe even checking ahead to ensure your time is scheduled well.) I also take this time to review my habit tracking progress.

Variations

If your daily tasks can’t really be tracked via a “done” or “not done” system, try keeping a career journal. In it, you would write – either every day or once a week – little updates on your goals progress, your accomplishments, what you need to work on, and anything else you want to track but is more cerebral than done/not done.

The one-sentence journal is one style I really like. Every day or week, write one sentence to describe what you accomplished for your goal. In the Clever Cactus planner, you could do this in the “Smiles & Thoughts” section of the “My Month In Review” pages (first one appears on page 28).

Work it

Now that you have a plan of attack, milestones to work towards, a list of daily and weekly tasks to keep you moving forward, and a way to track your accomplishments, it’s time for the fun part – working on your goal! Do your best to stick to the plan each and every day. Use your agenda or Clever Cactus planner to keep notes and check off tasks as you complete them.

Here’s how I do my milestone checks (aka Monthly Reviews):

1. Open up the notes you made in steps 1 through 3. For me, these are in my Clever Cactus planner, pages 4 through 22.
2. Read over everything (and I do mean everything). Have any of your goals changed? Write that down!! (Plus the date it changed).
3. Cross off everything that’s done on the goal task list you created in step 3.
4. Adjust your task list based on your experiences so far (add to, remove, change tasks).
5. Make note of all the tasks you need to do in the coming month; write them on the appropriate “To Do” list (month or week). I write these on the Monthly To Do list during the monthly review. Then, during my “Monday Review”, I decide if I have time that week to do said task.
6. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for 12 months.

Monthly and Milestone check ins remind you that you’ve made progress. They boost your confidence, give you the big picture and let you assess your own strengths and weaknesses. They also give you a chance to look at the big picture, see what’s working and what’s not, and identify those troublesome areas in the following month.

Goal Change Examples

Goal: write 500 words a day.
Issue: you haven’t been able to meet that goal. Instead, you’ve been averaging 150 words a day.
Change: make your daily word count goal 200 – slightly higher than your average but more attainable.

Goal: Renovate the living room
Issue: Leak in bathroom, it needs to be repaired; can only afford one renovation.
Change: Renovate the bathroom (follow same schedule)