(Almost) Every Goal Setting Mistake I've Ever Made

I used to hate setting goals.

And now goal setting is the cornerstone of my coaching business.

Back when I was in my hating goals season, I made a LOT of mistakes with my goal setting.

Those mistakes set me up for failure and are a big reason that I thought goal setting wasn't for me.

Here is almost every goal setting mistake I've ever made. And what I do now, as someone who loves goals!

Setting a goal that's too big.

This has happened SO OFTEN in my coaching business. I'd see posts online about coaching achieving insane results in short time and think, that's what I need to be doing too.

Trouble is, I never believed I could achieve that goal.

Sure, it's good to set goals that are stretchy.

But setting a goal I couldn't believe in was always doomed for failure. I couldn't motivate myself to take any action because I didn't think the outcome was possible.

What I do instead: when I set a goal, I ask myself does at least a part of me believe this is possible for me?

Doesn't need to be all of me (that's the stretchy goal part), but there is enough belief that I can grow over time.

Not setting a goal at all.

Not setting a goal is an avoidance tactic.

I would tell myself I hold intentions so I wouldn’t be disappointed when the goal didn’t happen.

What was really happening is I was letting myself off the hook. Without a clear goal to work towards, I could fool myself that I was taking action towards what I wanted.

Without a clear destination, I couldn't hold myself accountable that those actions weren't moving me forward. How do I know I'm closer to the destination if I don't know what the destination is?

What I do instead: set a goal. Not any boring goal for the sake of it, a goal I'm amped for.

When I read my goal or think about my goal, I fizz with excitement. Check out Goal Gameplan Playbook to learn how to set this kind of goal.

Setting goals I didn't care about.

Bit like the first point, where I set goals influenced by other people, a big goal setting mistake is setting goals I don't care about.

Usually this happened at work when the professional development program required I come up with something. Pure tick box exercise.

It also happens at New Years when goal setting spirit is in the air so think 'oh better come up with something.'

I would set the goal with zero enthusiasm then feel bad about myself when I didn't achieve them.

No goals is better than fake goals.

What I do instead: Before I even set goals, I ask myself what's important to me in this phase of my life?

I'm connecting with the why behind the goal before I even get to narrowing down what the specific goal is.

Set too many goals.

Last year I set five big goals for the year and didn't achieve any of them.

Part of that was becoming pregnant meant my year took a bit of a different turn.

And part of that was trying to progress five goals every single week was overwhelming. If I took two actions for each goal, that was ten things I had to do each week on top of working full time and living my life.

It wasn't sustainable.

Too often I wouldn't tick off my ten things and feel disheartened, disappointed, frustrated.

I had added too many things to my plate AND the progress I was making towards each goal was SO slow. It's hard to stay motivated when you're inching along.

What I do instead: I look at the usual goal setting areas; finance, wellness, career, relationships and ask myself in which areas do I want to grow? Then I set goals for those things and leave the rest.

Right now, after a lot of focus on financial goals, that's taking a backseat as a I focus on becoming a Mum. We don't need to progress everything, all at once, all of the time.

Forgetting about a goal I set.

I swear this is what happens with New Year's resolutions. We get all gung ho and excited about something. Then life happens and we're operating in our usual routines. A month has gone by and we haven't consciously thought about our goal once.

This used to happen to me all the time.

Especially with work goals I didn't really care about. My monthly check in would come around and I would be scrambling to have taken some kind of action before I met with my manager.

What I do instead: I create a system for keeping my goals front of mind.

At work, this would be a reminder in my calendar that pops up once a week. For personal goals, my planner has my goals written in the front of it. Each week when I plan my week, I start by reviewing those goals.

We all make goal setting mistakes.

I'm willing to bet that every single person that reads this blog, has made at least one of the goal setting mistakes on this list.

The biggest mistake you could make, because of that, is to think that goals aren't for you.

I know for a long time I avoided goals, telling myself that it wasn't how I operated.

The truth is goals are an powerful tool for change.

They bring focus, clarity, intentional action, accountability into our lives.

Don't let these goal setting mistakes, or any other goal setting mistake you might have made, stop you from using goals to create your life.

I'd love to know, what goal setting mistake have you made?