Why I try to focus more on each step and then rewarding it, and how you can do it

Hello everyone,

I tend to overthink and spent too much time in my head. That’s one of the many reasons I started to write my blog because it forces me to do it instead of thinking. That doesn’t mean that I am now free of thinking too much and procrastinating. However, it helped me to do it less.

Anyway, the goal is to do it even less! And that brings me to the subject. I now try to implement zooming in on each step, doing it, and then rewarding myself for the step. Of course, it’s again easier said than done but progress is progress.

The system I try to implement is likely known to many people, although maybe not the updated version as it was for me. I am talking about the SMART-Goals system. It simply stands for:

Specific & clear reachable goal

Measurable success with steps and key-results for progress

Attractivity for yourself

Realizability, hence, can I reach it realistically?

Time, hence, deadlines and steps with dates (maybe even publicly to friends or family)

So, the idea is very straight forward but implementing is a bit more difficult than I expected. That´s why I try my best to implement as much as possible from the SMART-Goals to my day. Maybe it´s not all parts to each goal but I try to implement them more and more.

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

Tony Robbins

Some examples:

When I had to make quite some phone calls for minuscule things I wrote exactly down which calls I had to make (specific), I got the results I wanted (specific, attractive, measurable), I set the date and time (time, realizability). Finally, I started a timer before starting the first call (measurable).

The amazing thing was that I discovered that most calls were really short and I achieved my goals quite fast. While many times before I had the biggest resistance and often quite some procrastination before even calling. I hope that I will remember this so that the resistance of calling will decrease and, thus, my speed in tackling those necessary tasks faster.

Instead of setting myself the ambiguous goal of searching for jobs, I told myself to put two positions (specific, measurable, realizable) in my “career decision table” and grade them according to my chosen key-factors for a good job (attractive).

Instead of telling myself to solicit this week to at least for positions, I split it up into two goals. First, I told myself to look each day for an hour for interesting positions. And second, I set the goal of writing solicitations for an hour each day.

Those are my beginnings of trying to implement smarter planning into my daily habit.

I even saw some articles talking about SMARTER-Goals. Then they included:

Evaluable, thus can you assess the result of the goal

Recognize & Reward your achievements

Measurable and evaluable are in my head almost the same. Hence, I only try to recognize my steps forward and reward them.

That´s my take-away for now on SMART(ER)-Goals. What´s your experience with goalsetting?

All the best,

Alexander

Aim for the sky, but move slowly, enjoying every step along the way. It is all those little steps that make the journey complete.

Chanda Kochhar