The Alchemy of Goal Setting: The Growth Mindset

Simon Quayson

2 years ago

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The Alchemy of Goal Setting: Activating Your Growth Mindset

Goal setting can be a pain sometimes – typically by those who don’t set any or find the need for them. But this frame of mind is about to change. In a fast moving world and tech changes happening all around us, it is the ability to set goals and take action that will set us apart. Setting goals moves you from a place that you are, to the place you’d rather be.

That is why goal setting is so important. It is the deliberate design of the future you want to live. This will come with many essential components such as creating a system and a process that will guarantee outcomes. Here is how you cultivate the habit of goal setting that will psycho-automate a winning mindset to help you fulfill your dreams.

Goal Setting Ideas

There have been many strategies and frameworks to goal setting for all areas and aspects of life. For financial goals, career goals, or those that pertain to family and health; all these follow the same basic structure. I’ll placed a free cheat sheet at the end of this article to help you further pivot by 300% more this year.

Life-time Goal Setting: This is how you’d want your life to look like. It begins by discovering your gift and purpose, and setting your north-star ahead of you. It is that thing that wakes you up in the morning and fuels all your actions.

Long-term Goal Setting: Goals that are beyond one year into the future. (This is subject to discussion)

Medium-term Goal Setting: These are goals that can be reached within a few months, or up to a couple of years depending on the individual’s context. (There are no hard and fast rules, don’t try to over complicate things)

Short-term Goal Setting: Goals that are achievable within days, weeks, or months could fall into this category.

The Goal Setting Process

1) Learn as much as you can

Study the thing you want to achieve. If you desire financial freedom, while drafting a plan to achieve it; dedicate time to read up on the subject regularly. You could pursue saving money properly, or investing in stocks step-by-step, creating a 50-30-20 rule budgeting, or other areas outside the realm of financial independence or financial literacy.

2) Start with a long-term plan

With regard to financial independence and early retirement, where do you see yourself in the next 2 to 5 years, and what would you like your money to look like?

3) Set yearly goals

Create a basic one-year outlook plan that you can easily break down further into monthly goals for simplifying the process needed to reach that goal.

4) Set monthly goals

Your monthly goal is one piece of your yearly goal. This gives you about 30 days of executable objectives that will get you closer to the ultimate achievement of what you’re striving for.

5) Set weekly goals

Your weekly goal is simply your monthly goal broken down into about 4 parts for each week of the month (don’t worry too much if your calendar has 5 weeks in a given month). It’s the perspective of the actionable quadrant that really matters.

6) Set daily goals

These daily tasks will enable you focus on the smaller parts of your plan that lead to the accomplishment of the weekly objectives. You may work on this every day of the week, or perhaps just 3 days in a given week. This depends on you.

7) Set micro tasks

Your daily goals could still be broken down into sub-units that can be measured in hours or half-hourly parts. Do this within the day and monitor them with a pomodoro timer. This gradual step by step progress helps you build momentum that translates into the achievement of your overall goals.

Goal Setting Example

Here is an example of a fitness goal for staying fit and healthy using the above mentioned framework. We can draw insight from this basic simplistic example and apply it to the ambition of our choice. Such as financial success.

Goal Statement

I [state full name] lose weight (or build muscle) [100kg] in one year by[month/day/year].

Goal Method

By running, walking, and a new diet plan I found on [state the online resource]

Goal Place

In my neighborhood (or gym / fitness club)

Goal Time

Twice a week [select the days of the week]

Goal Kit or Tools

My running gear, GPS tracker, music playlist, refreshments, and supplements, etc.

Learn as much as you can

Read up on the subject of fitness and watch content that is applicable more to the areas of walks, runs, and marathons – or your specific area of interest.

Start with a long-term plan

Ask yourself: where do I see myself in the next 2 to 5 years, and what would my body, my weight, health and diet look like? Internally, what joy/happiness or fulfillment levels am I hoping to achieve?

Set yearly goals

Create a basic one-year health & fitness plan that you can easily break down further into simple monthly routines.

Set monthly goals

Each month’s goal setting activities will to help you reach your yearly fitness goal. You will get 30 days of action and the chance to make mistakes and rebound back to the mean at any time; with absolute flexibility.

Set weekly goals

Your weekly health and fitness objectives help you complete the goal setting process for the month. If you fail in a particular week, there is no need to worry. You can resolve to come back stronger next week.

Set daily goals

These daily fitness tasks or micro tasks will enable you focus and achieve the smaller sections of your overall goal. Even if you have a plan to walk a mile every other day, you can still perform daily stretches, morning warm ups, and daily diet watch that advance the success of the entire health program.

Set micro tasks

Your daily goal setting routine could be broken down further into smaller units. They could be measured with a stop-watch or app. This will give you a chance to monitor small gains and check inefficiencies. This doesn’t have to be strict. However, it pays when you discipline yourself with a firm resolve to stay on course.

Revisit Daily & Weekly Goal Setting Plan

Goals that are not revisited often become orphan goals. They will slowly fade away and come up in the next year’s resolution. You’ll feel like a failure. It’ll take some emotional effort to do a rebound to re-set and execute that once again.

Journal all your objectives and activities associated with them. Keep reviewing and stay focused on the high priority tasks. Don’t allow this to become burdensome, rather have fun doing it. Without some form of focus, you could slip off track by distractions.

Create a Basic System for Taking Action

Take baby steps to implement the most simplistic daily routine that will get one foot in front of the other. There are other people who can jump into the deep end and start building complex processes for their daily tasks. If this is not you, don’t worry.

I became a half-marathon specialist by just beginning with a crawl, and then baby steps with no external help, trainer or guide. Maybe a personal trainer or coach could have helped me achieve that faster – but achieving this feat all by myself gave me that armor of confidence.

Your system need not be complicated. Adapt the elements and just make progress from there:

1. Your Goal Statement

A personal mission statement that you can curate to give you motivation as you repeat it to yourself and print in upon your wall.

2. Your Goal Setting Method

What strategy would you be using to achieve that goal? Running and walking are examples of methods someone could use to achieve a fitness plan. (You can choose a similar method, or make yours unique)

3. Your Goal Place

Where would the goal be executed? In the fitness example, the running & walking would do down in your neighborhood. This is your base run.

4. Your Goal Time

Set an execution time frame on a daily or weekly basis; such as running or walking to lose weight – on Mondays and Thursdays from 5am to 7am each day. Change the time to evenings or weekends. Try a few things until you land on the sweet spot.

5. Your Goal Kit or Tools

Regarding the fitness example, you’ll need to prepare your basic gear, music playlist, refreshments, and whatever ideas you could gather. In my case, I would record my voice declaring powerful affirmations; and allow it to loop continuously in my earphones while I run.

Establish Simple Habits

Habits can be learned or unlearned. Quit listening to naysayers who say something cannot be done – only because they can’t do it themselves. Once you can program your mindset and fill it with what you want, it will respond and generate an equivalent output.

The secret to creating a habit is to choose the right actions, sub-action, and even adjacent actions that you can perform repetitively. Be basic about it. Do the absolute minimum in terms of quantifiable effort, and improve on it gradually over time.

The Hard Part is Execution

Honestly, I feel blessed if I can concentrate and nail about 4 hours of focused work a day. Although the plan was to hit 10 hours or even more. But progress is the magic of achievement. Action is the index of all profound accomplishments. Goal setting that helps you execute a simple task each they gets you closer to your target objective. It will also activate the victory chemicals in your brain. I believe this stuff is called motivation.

You must take action on a daily basis, even if you’re not ready yet. The worst thing you could do is to wait for all your ducks to be in a row before you begin. Get past the perfectionism demon and take simple yet calculated action.

I’ve taken a series of simple and imperfect actions on certain areas of my life over the period of 5 to 10 years. The outcome has made me a little better (above average) than others in those areas. So 1% of improvement each day leads to significant growth – if you factor in the miracle of compounding over time.

Track and Review Goals

Your goal setting process and execution need to be tracked. By tracking and reviewing the end result to compare with the intended plan. Your results must exceed the initial goal not trail it. This calls for constant optimization and adjustments that are documented in a little journal.

This is also true for setting financial independence goals, financial literacy goals for your kids, side-hustle goals (like Domain Name Fipping) that require weekly updates or monthly net-worth tracking to give you some perspective on your progress.

Make this a very simple process. The easier the better. You’ll later adapt a more intricate approach to reviewing your goals over time. The last thing we want is to be paralyzed by analysis – robbing us of time and energy to focus on the actual goals we’ve set for ourselves.

Making Room for Failure

By this time you’re wondering – what failure? We can identify two kinds of failure here. One is acceptable, but the other is not. We want to fail forward. Failure is part of the game of winning. The trick is to get back up and try again. Keep this in mind when you’re all fire up to try something new.

The worst kind of failure is the one that kicks you out of the game. Giving up shouldn’t be an option for consideration. You could lower your standards until you return with more momentum. The primary culprit for this kind of failure is your comfort zone.

Tools and Resources

There are many tools and resources out there today that will assist you in making things work. Some of these basic tools are already used by you every day without knowing it. Examples are: Your alarm clock, and a pomodoro timer. As basic as these things are, they can make a difference between your success and failure.

Your alarm clock is that contraption that slowly pulls you out of your sleep and places your feet on the pathway of achievement. I know sometimes the snooze button can be irresistible. I’ve realized that if I want to wake up at 5am in the morning, the alarm needs to go off at 4:30 or 4:45am.

You might need a small margin of time to wrestle with the demons that bind you with sleep and comfort. After a few months, you’ll start developing an internal biological clock that wakes you up minutes earlier to beat that alarm clock in the first place.

A Pomodoro Timer is another great tool that will help you stay focused on daily tasks. This is an app you can download instantly – free. You can set it for 30 minutes (or any duration) to countdown, and also give you breaks in the middle. You’ll get a smooth prompting system that will help you get things done in the day.

The Bottom Line

The truth is, we are the sum of all your thoughts. Our success begin with the translation of these thoughts or imagination into goals. Goal setting needs to be optimized and tracked for performance. It all sounds easy up to this point – but taking action on our goals win the day.

I failed at my first attempt to run a mile. I kept pushing until I did it. A while ago, my barber couldn’t even believe I was running 5 miles. Today I can do triple that distance – 15 miles. I haven’t just become physically fit, but mentally stronger.

The will to endure and surmount obstacles can be transferred to other areas of our lives. Achieving your goals in any area causes a spill over to other parts. Here is the link to the free cheat sheet I promised. Also, check out my book Iron Habits of Financial Freedom and see how I transmuted fitness values into savings habits that could change your perspective on money forever. Its a mini money ebook of 5 chapters that can be completed in no time.