Goal-setting for millennials: 4 steps plan
Why do you need a purpose in life?
Living in an endless opportunity age it is easy to get lost within your life direction, thus creating and focusing on the set goals is a key to
- Prioritize personal & professional daily activities
- Be time-efficient, motivated & results-driven
- Realize dreams and feel purpose
I want to share the goal-setting technique which inspired me to set and follow my objectives, as it only required some time on your own to construct your answers and draw a purposeful life plan.
The method starts by asking to name a life purpose. Even though you only need to write down one or two sentences, it is indeed a hard task to complete. Below are some questions for you to consider to better understand personal values, strengths, dreams you have and to acknowledge your purpose from different perspectives.
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- Philosophical. Why do I want to do?
- Uniqueness. What is that only I can do in this world?
- Activity. What activities do I carry out daily?
- Passion. When do I feel most alive, energized personally and professionally?
- Life talent. What do I do well?
- Dream. What’s my dream?
- Role model. Who do I look up to? A person that inspired me with his/her activities, achievements, skills.
- Ideal workday. What constitutes an amazing workday for me?
- Legacy. What would I most want to be known for?
An example of the purpose of life could sound as simple as ‘to use my writing to inspire young adults’ or ‘to serve and encourage others in a balanced manner in education’.
Don’t stress if your purpose doesn’t sound perfect, it will change and get more specific as you grow throughout the years. On the other hand, it would be weird if you still had the same goals as when you were a five-year-old…
Now, by having identified the purpose or even a clue of what it might be, we move on to designing personal mission and vision.
The mission reflects on how you will achieve your purpose. It is usually an action plan, so starting your mission statements with ‘to’ would be great. A vision stands for a bigger picture of what you want to achieve (similar to goals). You can dream as wild as you want. I advise to keep up with your personal values (you can draft your values on a paper and keep nearby to reflect on them once in a while) as most goals are based or at least reflects on personal (or professional) values and principles one might have inherited or set.
An example of TEDx mission and vision statements can be used as an example. Their mission is to spread ideas. Whereas vision sounds like ‘We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world’.
By this time a bigger picture should come to life. Having described or simply thought of what you aim in this life and what matters to you facilitate identifying personal values, people you look up to, talents you want to pursue. A key message I wish to translate to my friends is don’t be afraid to dream big.
Millennials often limit the goals they set and things they might achieve due to multiple factors. First, society plays a massive role. I.e. if one grew up in an environment where everyone believed that a female cannot or shouldn’t be an astrophysicist, most girls will grow truly believing the fact and not even questioning that’s statement’s validity. Stereotypes, common social opinions also have an impact on us. Secondly, young adults also tend to limit their potential by families they grew in. To illustrate, if a family cherish a specific family business, the children might inherit it in the future, which leads them not keeping their career options open, sticking to the same skills and talents family fosters but not learning new ones, and having their life path drew way before they had thought of it. Finally, I don’t know if it’s just me, but even if I think I dream big, it’s not big and crazy enough. Back in a personal development course, I was challenged to dream as crazy as I can which I thought I did. And yet, there seemed to be several obstacles I had to overcome to let myself craft some dreams in my head, as I was only dreaming ‘inside the box’. When I reflect on that activity now, I question myself why I felt obliged to only dream to a certain level. I tried to protect myself from potential future challenges or mistakes but not even allowing myself to encounter them. You see, my wish to stay safe and comfortable led me to construct a paradigm which associated daring life goals with challenges and unhappiness. Having identified and questioned an unhealthy lens I was seeing the world through, opened endless opportunities to develop as an individual and professionally (as you might have guessed already).
‘It only seems crazy until it’s done’ — Nike
Finally, we reached the time of the article to set goals.
Goal setting requires a considerably large amount of intrinsic motivation as you will play an active role throughout the journey to achieving your objectives, thus drafting personal (what YOU want) reflecting on your core values in life is useful. Besides, the addressed goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, time-specific and realistic. Having established measurable and time-limited goals will encourage you to aim at them as they will see considerably smaller and easier attainable rather than general ones. Ideally, the goals will be build based on the purpose, mission and vision you have familiarised yourself with earlier.
Tip #1. If your goals align with the words ‘I want to become a …’, I find it handy utilizing a DO & BE strategy (developed by Zachary & Fischler). It asks ‘what do I need to do in a short-term (tangible) to be someone in long-term goals (intangible)’. The strategy facilitates to think of the skills set needed to become a person or professional in your longer-term plans.
‘What do I need to do in a short-term (tangible) to be someone in long-term goals (intangible)’
An easy yet helpful method to follow while working on your goals is a GROW model developed by a coaching pioneer John Whitmore (after all, who doesn’t love acronyms).
GROW stands for:
- Goal
- Reality
- Options
- Will
The model suggests establishing or clarifying goals one has. Also, it highlights the importance to think of ways you will know you’ve reached the goals and method to evaluate them.
Then, the person should think of a current situation he/ she is at, as it is usually a starting point to begin working on your goals effectively. The questions helpful to ask are ‘how your current role benefits to the set goals’, ‘have you already taken steps towards your goal/ skills needed to develop/ degrees to be gained, etc.’.
Next, comes exploring options available. Once you have identified the reality you are at, exploring possible options to reach your goals comes handy. The questions to be asked are ‘what else could I do’, ‘what are advantages and disadvantages of each option’, ‘do your values align with the options’, ‘what do you need to stop doing to achieve a goal’, ‘what obstacles you might have to overcome’.
Finally, having described options available and possible challenges you should have a better idea of how to achieve your goal. It’s is now your time to draft a specific action plan to follow. Useful questions are ‘what will you do now/ when’, ‘what soft and hard skills you need to learn to achieve your goals’, ‘what could stop you moving forward & how will you overcome this’, ‘how will you keep yourself motivated’, ‘how are you going to track your progress’.
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Tip #2. Visualization exercise. We listen to a bunch of advice from our tutors, parents, media and society, and yet I believe that you can provide yourself with great life advice too. The exercise asks you to imagine yourself in your professional life. Imagine, you are truly happy and satisfied with your current personal and professional lives. You’ve landed your dream job, do daily activities which bring joy, are proud of a person you have become and everything you have learnt. Now look back at the person you are and your current situation. Evaluate what you need to achieve, what skills need to be developed or learnt, contacts to be made in order to be successful in your terms. Now imagine, today’s ‘you’ go to the succeeded professional ‘you’ to ask for the advice. One piece of advice which would help you to get the career you want or become a person you’ve always dreamt of becoming. Now foster and remember that advice as it’s usually really simple and personal but it’s handy to keep it locked in your head just in case.
As for me, I have found the exercise helpful (perhaps because of the creative imagination of mine on that day). The conclusion I came to was that everything I want will come to me at a certain time if I only keep developing and challenging myself. I advised myself to be patient (highly needed) and keep improving my skills, working on the mindset and meeting people. Surprisingly or not, the advice was supported by the previous goals reached and having identified an interlink of continuous versatile growing and acknowledging that I cannot have everything I want right now. Some things take time, hence remaining patient and practising positive attitude towards the future helped me to get where I am now (aka already pretty satisfied with my life) and inspire me to set future goals.
This being said, another key takeout of the article is to practice gratitude.
Tip #3. Practice gratitude. As often as you can/ feel like, whether it would be weekly, monthly or annually. Practising gratitude stands for appreciating what you have achieved so far, being grateful for the opportunities offered, lessons learnt, people met. It’s an easy way to reflect on your journey towards the goals too, as you evaluate things you have achieved, and tracking the progress of what next steps you might have to take to meet the direction of your goal.
A handy tool to reflect on one’s achievements on an annual base is https://yearcompass.com/en.
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I was full of surprise and excitement when I came across goals setting and the incredibly positive outcome it brings to my everyday life. I felt motivated to craft my own goals, put them in a noticeable place in the room and start each day being motivated to come to a step closer to my achieving goals. I hope this article or a part of it inspires and encourages you to dare to dream and reach your full potential.
Feel free to get back to me with any insights you might have or just to simply share your progress.
Truly Yours
References: Performace Consultants International Ltd. (2019). The Grow model. https://www.performanceconsultants.com/grow-model