If you want to change or achieve something in your life, you should set yourself goals. Without knowing where you are going, you won’t get there either. What many do not know is that it also depends on the right formulation of goals. In fact, you can dramatically increase the chance of achieving your goals if you spend a little time studying how to formulate your goals. I have summarized the most important things you need to know for this in this article.
With this article I want to show you why it is so important that you pay attention to a good formulation of your goals. I also want to help you to formulate your goals in the future in such a way that it will be much easier for you to stick with them and ultimately achieve them.
In fact, it doesn’t matter whether you build muscle mass , lose some weight, just get fit (again) or move forward in any other area of your life. The rules in this article apply to any of your goals.
Why the right formulation of goals is so important
Perhaps you are now wondering why it should be so important to formulate your goals in a certain way. Why do you have to formulate your goals at all? Isn’t it enough to want something and work on it?
I have made the experience that you have to have formulated your goal specifically if you want a realistic chance of achieving it on your own. At least for big goals that are worth achieving, you can’t avoid this step.
Most people don’t, however. They don’t specify their goals. They don’t hold onto them or concern themselves with what they’re really about. In my world, such people don’t really have any real goals. Such people are more likely to have wishes and resolutions. They lack the fixed star of a specific goal to align with.
Do you know the classic New Year’s resolutions that many people have for New Year’s Eve and that only very few implement? Most also know beforehand that they will not achieve these things at all. Even if they try, they usually fail to motivate themselves over and over again to stay on the ball long enough.
The problem with not having a clear and binding goal is that you don’t have a chance to direct your time and energy in such a way that it effectively gets you in the right direction.
In fact, there is now some scientific research that clearly shows that people who are concerned with their goals and objectives are much more likely to achieve them. It seems to have a special meaning that goals are clearly, binding, written down and follow certain rules, which I will explain in a moment.
You really have to want to achieve your goal
Before I get to the specific rules for a good formulation of goals, I would like to make one thing clear to you: No matter how well your goal is formulated, you always have to want to achieve it, otherwise you can leave it alone. Only if you really want to achieve your goals will you be able to set your priorities in such a way that you get closer and closer to them. Nobody manages to motivate themselves to do something anew every day that they don’t want at all.
That doesn’t mean that you should remove your make-up, because you love to eat sweets. What that means is that if you haven’t found your why yet, then you should urgently search for it.
If you have something in mind that you really want to achieve and you are aware of why you want to achieve it, then you have come to the right place and can use the following rules to optimize your goal formulation so that you it will be much easier to achieve.
Formulate your goals effectively with the S.M.A.R.T.-formula
Your goals are the most important thing when it comes to changing something in your life. Even when it comes to achieving something and overcoming your weaker self , goals are worth gold. The better you have set and formulated your goals, the easier it will be for you to pursue and achieve them. In fact, it has been found that people who achieve many of their goals, consciously or unconsciously, follow a simple goal-setting pattern. This pattern was scientifically analyzed and poured into a simple five-part set of rules.
The acronym S.M.A.R.T. stands for S specific, M edible, A attractive, R ealistic and T Erminiert. Using these criteria / rules, I want to show you what is important when formulating your goals if you want to formulate your goal really well and effectively.
1) Your goal must be specific
A goal should be specific, i.e. so precise. That means it clearly states what is to be achieved. The more you can narrow it down, the better it is for your goal. So don’t pretend to “lose something”. It’s just not accurate enough. Get as specific as you can. So, rather, try to lose five pounds in front of you. It would be even more precise to reduce your body fat by five kilos.
Addition: The S should not only stand for specific, but also for written. In various studies it was found that those who formulate their goals in writing have up to ten times greater chance of achieving them. So it’s best to write your goals down and hang them up where you can see them regularly.
2) Make your goal measurable
Only if you can objectively measure whether you have reached your goal can you understand it beyond doubt. In addition, the progress that you make on the way can be checked. This gives you the chance to monitor your progress and, if necessary, readjust it if things are not going so well.
In principle, measurability is a further development of your specific target formulation. Instead of losing so much weight that you feel comfortable looking in the mirror again, you should define in advance at which weight loss this condition should occur. So set yourself the goal of losing five kilos because you expect to feel good in your skin again.
3) Your goal should be attractive enough
Actually, the A in literature is often interpreted for ambitious goals. Personally, however, I find the interpretation as attractive goals much more appropriate and also more target-oriented. Because, as I wrote before, if you don’t want to achieve your goal, then you won’t achieve it either. So it should be attractive enough for you.
So make absolutely sure that you formulate your goal in such a way that it is so attractive to you that you can hardly wait to achieve it. Otherwise you will probably not make it e.g. to motivate them to exercise regularly in the evening after work .
4) Stay a little realistic
Of course it is also important that your goal is realistically achievable for you. After all, you want to avoid not taking the first step in the first place. That can happen when you cannot believe yourself that is available for you. Your goals should challenge you and make you leave your comfort zone, but they shouldn’t be so big that they intimidate you completely.
But as Walt Disney said:
Everything you can imagine, you can achieve.
So try to formulate your goal formulation in such a way that you can imagine it. Formulate your goal in such a way that above all you can believe that you will really achieve it. So if in doubt, start a little smaller so that your first goal is immediately a success. You yourself can then best assess how your further goals should proceed from then on.
By the way: A big goal can be unrealistic at first if you achieve realistic intermediate goals can become a realistic long-term goal in the medium to long term. So don’t put your big dreams aside too quickly just because they just seem too far away.
5) Set yourself a specific appointment
If you have a goal, you want to achieve it at some point. At some point, however, it is not specific enough that it would trigger something in you that really drives you. At some point, when in doubt, it is still a long way off. And in the end, at some point it often never becomes.
That is why it is very important that you choose a specific point in time for your goal by which you want to have reached it at the latest. The date should be as specific as possible. In case of doubt, your inner weaker self will almost certainly use up to the last minute. So it’s best to set a specific day and write it down in your calendar.
Bonus tip: Build the path into your goal
Here is another tip from me that is not part of the SMART formula. However, it helps many people to grasp their set goals even better and ultimately to implement them. For this it makes sense to take the path to the goal directly into account in the goal formulation. If you are already thinking about what you specifically need to do to achieve it when you are formulating your goal and you let that flow into it, then the path to the goal becomes immediately clearer. This also makes your goal more achievable because you know what to do.
5 good examples for the target formulation according to the S.M.A.R.T.-formula
To conclude, I would like to give you a few concrete examples to show you how you can use the rules described above specifically for the formulation of goals. I consciously took frequent resolutions and formulated them into smart goals. Of course, you shouldn’t take any of these goals straight away, but they can certainly be used as a guide.
1) Run a marathon
In 6 months I will successfully run my first marathon in under 4 hours , for which I will increase my weekly running quota from 2 to 4 hours.
2) Lose weight / lose weight
In 3 months I will have lost 3 kilos of body fat by exercising three times a week and consistently avoiding chocolate and gummy bears. I will also make sure to integrate more exercise into my everyday life .
3) Build muscles
I will have built 3 kilos of muscle mass by June 15th by consistently doing my hypertrophy training four times a week and following my split training plan . In addition, following the rules of a good bulk phase diet , I will make sure that I have sufficient calories and that I consume enough protein.
4) Quit smoking
I will have completely quit smoking by May 1st. That means I don’t smoke more than one cigarette a week. To do this, I will gradually reduce my cigarette consumption every week and not buy any new cigarettes.
5) Drink less alcohol
From now on I will only have one alcoholic drink on special occasions (insert list) because I know that alcohol and fitness do not go together . To do that, I’ll throw the alcohol out of my household or give it to friends. I will also ask my friends to accept this decision and to support me in it.
Incidentally, I set myself all these goals sometime in the past and successfully achieved them. Have a look at one of my very first blog articles about my easy and long-term transformation .
I hope this article has helped you understand the importance of correctly phrasing your goals in order to improve the chances of achieving them. I am sure that you can use the rules described effectively to get closer to your goals even faster.
If you know what you have to do, but you find it difficult to motivate yourself to really pull it off, then take a look at the Sports motivation category here on the blog. There you will surely find some articles with useful tips and tricks on how you can achieve your goals faster.
If you are looking for a concrete and proven step-by-step strategy that accompanies you from setting goals to achieving them, my book Become a bastard killer is exactly the right tool for you. It has helped several hundred people achieve their goals.,