8 Common Goal-Setting Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

how not to set goals

set effective goals by avoiding common goal-setting mistakes made by many people

What you will learn

the common goal-setting mistakes are and 

what to do instead to avoid them

Let’s get started

The 8 Common Goal-Setting Mistakes and how to avoid them

Note These Mistakes I Made Myself You’re Not Alone & I Totally Get You 

1- Make your goals vague

Eg. make money from my business, lose weight, be more healthy

As you can see you really don’t know what exactly you want to achieve.

these are broad ideas you need to specify to be clear 

Instead, You must make your goals clear & specific aka having a clear outcome

For example

Eg. make 10k in revenue by the 31st of December 2023, lose 20kg by the 30th of July,

workout 5 days per week, eat veggies with lunch and dinner

2-there’s no way to detect the progress of your goal

Your goals need to be measurable aka have a clear thing to measure like money

there’re different ways to measure your progress described in the following example

Eg. make 10k in revenue by December 31st

The first measurement here is the money, 

The second measurement is the number of clients you want to sign, 

The third measurement is effort based on how many reach out you need to do in a day /per week

and how many promotions you need to post per week

Mixing the way you measure your goal between result and effort metrics will help in the day-to-day

to keep going because you’re not only looking at the end results only

as it can cause discouragement if you didn’t hit it or are not that close to it

however, the effort metrics show you your effort, your growth

and how much action you took

Which will provide a great encouragement to keep going

3-changing your goal from last year

If you set a goal the previous year to make eg. 10k in revenue but you didn’t hit it 

There are 2 cases here:

1- if you got close to it for example you made 7k,8k,9k..etc

in this case you can change the goal and set a new one the following year but

2-If you didn’t make any money or so little like 1k that’s a success for sure

but it’s best not up your goal or changes it to a bigger number/goal 

instead, keep it the same because some goals take more time than a year

What can you do In this case, you can set an effort-based goal under it 

4-setting too many big goals in different areas of your life

Setting too many big goals will require a lot of mental work from you and you can focus on so much at a time

Instead, You can set smaller goals/habits based on different areas but not big goals

because as I said they require a lot of energy and work from your brain

Also, to not overwhelm yourself with things to do 

Add variety if you want by making small goals in different non-priority areas that you want to improve but it is not your main focus 

5-not dividing your big goal into small & doable milestones and  tasks

If your goal is to make 10k in revenue by the 31 of December 2023

it’ll be overwhelming to look at it every month and try to achieve it if you left it as it is.

What you do instead is to break big goals into smaller goals that are divided over the 4 quarters

so, in each quarter you focus on the small goal instead of the big goal and achieve

that which will add up to the big goal at the end

6-you leave it open without an end to it

Your goal needs to be time-bound

why? To help you focus and create urgency to achieve your goal because

according to Parkinson’s law work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion 

Aka the task/work/goal will take the exact time you give it .

>if you give yourself 1 year to get done it’ll take that if you let it open it may take longer because you have no urgency to do the work

Of course, some goals may take longer than one year to finish (see point 3)

Still set the deadline

so, you don’t forget and deprioritize your goal

You already going to face your own sabotage you don’t need to add to it by not setting a deadline for your goal

7-not understanding the why behind your goal

Your reason behind pursuing a goal is so so imperative to help you keep going when things get tough when you fail,

when you question why you’re going after it, when nothing is working,… 

It is the anchor and the driver to the action and the follow through with your goal no matter what happens on the way to it

So, what’s your why behind the goal you set?

Don’t forget to answer it

8-not working on who you need to be in order to achieve your goal

Especially for big goals as they will require you to step from your current comfort

and who you know yourself to be someone who can achieve the goal.

the person who achieves the big goal isn’t the same you right now

but an evolved version of yourself

And I share all about how to shift your identity here

In my goal-setting & planning workbook,

you’ll find everything you need to set goals and plan them in the proper way to avoid the above mistakes

click here to download it 

Cheers to your success

Wafaa