"Do you have any long-term goals?"
The majority of responses from my friends and colleagues tend to be "sort of - eventually a house, retire at 60", but no one was firm or convinced of their goals. So it had me thinking - is there a bad, better, best way of thinking about goals that are more than 3 years out?
A few more questions spun out from there -
Should I have goals of medium and long-term horizons? Or just focus on the short-term?
How do I set a time horizon for a long-term goal?
Do long-term goals take away from the serendipity, unpredictability and in-the-moment experiences of life?
Let's dig in.
(More) Science on Goal Setting
Dr. Edwin Locke's Goal Setting Theory emphasizes the importance of clear, challenging goals and feedback for task performance. His work underlines that specific and difficult goals lead to higher performance than easy or vague goals. Meanwhile, Dr. Angela Duckworth's research on grit highlights the value of long-term goals as a component of passion and perseverance, suggesting that long-term aspirations can fuel sustained effort and achievement.
Moreover, a study by Doris Fay and Michael Frese suggests that having a variety of goals, spanning short to long-term, enhances motivation and performance by providing both immediate milestones and distant aspirations to strive for.
So in summary, generally having a mix of short (1-2 years), medium (3-5 years), and long-term (6+ years) goals can be a good thing. That is…if you do have those type of gaols to begin with.
What long-term goals might I have?
Remember that the point of long-term goals is to help you clarify what you want, plan effectively, inspire yourself toward action, and make sure you're doing what is needed right now to build toward the future. Not everything needs to be a long-term goal.
Let's see some examples:
Buying a home
Becoming a senior executive
Having and putting children through college
Scaling your startup or small business
Becoming a citizen of a different country
Each of the examples above includes a few elements:
All of them have clear arrival points - you can tell when you met the goal (SMART)
They all require a series of steps that can take 1 to multiple years
They require some accumulation of something - money, time, knowledge, skills, etc.
Each one of them requires some set of sacrifice and/or prioritization to get done
Choosing the Right Time Horizon
Let's talk time. Goals that are too ambitious can either deflate our motivation or manipulate our behavior to cut corners. Or, we underestimate how much work the goal will be to meet, and are either deflated or give up easily. On the other hand, if we set a goal that is too easy, we stop short of our true potential and deprive ourselves of the fulfillment we seek for the accomplishment.
In my example, I realized that the goals I have been setting for myself have not been challenging enough; they were watered down by my lack of belief in myself and the fear of failure and embarrassment. With a lot of self-talk, encouragement from others, and journaling, I decided to set goals that are achievable but very challenging - my example is that I'm shooting for Potencia to meet 100% of my income needs within 5 years and to publish a book or online course.
“Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years.”
This phrase, known as “Amara’s Law” (by Roy Amara, a Stanford computer scientist) and popularized by Bill Gates, holds some wisdom. We are overconfident about projects right in front of us, but when we look 10 years out, we don’t understand how much time that is, and how much can happen in that time.
From Psychology Today: “many unanticipated things can throw short-term plans into disarray”. However, “over time, life's unpredictability, non-linearity, and twists can work in your favor, if you persist. Stick to your bigger-picture values, interests, and goals, and be open to serendipity.”
The other factor we underestimate was well put by physics professor Albert Allen Bartlett: “The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”
Imagine in 1 year, you land 5 clients, and each of those clients recommends you to 2 more clients, and each of them connects you to 2 more people, and so on - this change, if sustained, is exponential. Clients, networking contacts, social media followers, partnerships, etc. - these all compound over time to produce exponentially more opportunities.
Tips for setting time horizons for long-term outcome-based goals
Identify your why (cliche, but true).
I was trying to set a revenue goal for my business, but it felt completely arbitrary. When I put my revenue goal in the context of my greater financial goals (purchasing a home, transitioning my career fully to my own business, etc.), it became really clear that my revenue goal had very real consequences in my life. If I couldn’t make a certain amount of revenue, I couldn’t quit my day job save enough for a down payment, or even afford my current lifestyle! What the revenue affords me is very clear and inspiring.
Work backward from the outcome to a performance-based goal.
Remember that outcome-based goals are those such as a revenue/sales goal, weight loss, promotions, or winning a competition - results you CANNOT control. What you CAN control is your performance, (aka actions you take that impact the outcome). For a sales goal, you can control the number of calls you have, or how well you conduct the calls. For weight loss, you can control what you eat, exercise, etc., but you cannot control how much weight you lose directly.
This distinction is extremely important because it forces you to identify, and measure the actions in your control, which you can then use to estimate the appropriate time horizon.
Play around with a goal (for example, in 5 years, I want to be making $100K in revenue) and see what assumptions need to hold true to work.
It was sobering to create a model that told me what work it would take to reach my goals. See my very simple calculations for Year 1:
$10k revenue this year =
average 15 coaching calls per month [assumption: $55/call] =
45 unique clients per year [assumption: clients stay for 4 calls]
19 discovery calls per month [20% conversion from a discovery call] =
150 targeted outreach messages + regular networking + social media marketing [assumption: 1/8 conversion rate] =
About 7-8 hours of work per week on marketing/sales/networking
I used the above (those are not the actual numbers) just to get my head wrapped around the work I needed to do. Then I projected out 5, 10 years, the business growing 10%, 50%, 100% a year. How long would it take me to get to $100k? $200k? Just the thought exercise, no matter how basic and far away from other variables that would impact the model, helped light a fire under me that I needed to be more strategic, learn how to better sell and market myself, and manage my time much better.
This exercise started to give me an idea of the road ahead, increasing my motivation and resolve to work towards ambitious goals.
Refine your goal continuously so that it feels ambitious but achievable.
Life is dynamic. Things change. You change. The people around you change, and the environment is
unpredictable. There is no problem, no shame, no obligation needed when it comes to your goals. They are yours to have, and to be negotiated with the people most important to you. Listen to yourself and your intuition to know whether a goal is worth changing or letting go to accommodate life changes.
Do long-term goals take away from the present and serendipity/spontaneity of life?
Good question! Absolutely, they can. When long-term goals create a sense of lack, scarcity, urgency, jealousy, restlessness, etc. - you can fixate on the negative and forget what is right in front of you. BUT...that's not the goal's fault! It's your relationship to the goal that is causing distress.
Goals should be inspiring and motivating! They help clarify what you're doing and why, and pull you into action rather than in constant planning mode. They help you sustain energy, effort, and a good attitude over time.
We lose the enjoyment of the present when we are attached and fixated on the outcome, and reject the journey it will take to get there. When we embrace the journey - including the hard work, discomfort, failure, unexpected obstacles, and all the other "good stuff" that comes along the way - we realize that the outcome is the cherry on top of a string of valuable, worthwhile experiences. And the journey is just a series of present moments, where we choose whether the actions we take are aligned or not aligned with our goals.
Lastly - long-term goals do not have to be at the expense of allowing serendipity, spontaneity, unexpected opportunities, and random events to alter the path of your life. Sure, some choices are life-altering and harder to change direction (kids, med school, etc.), but keeping your eyes open to what's out there will keep you nimble.
Bottom Line
Lastly on this - you get to choose how your lifestyle looks and how ambitious of goals you want to
work towards. There's no better or worse - there's only a calibration of your true dreams/ambitions and all the other priorities that you have in life. Sure, listen to your partner and the people to whom
you are accountable, but otherwise, block out the noise, turn off social media, and check in with your mind, body, heart, and soul. It's important to look in the mirror and ask yourself what you're willing to give up to do what matters most to you.
If you want to chat about long-term goals, book a consultation here.
For learning and with love,
Chris
Comments