It’s been almost a month since I last posted here – I guess that tells you how busy life has been for me. Between school, projects, initiatives, and my personal life, I haven’t had much time to just stop, think, and write. I have a lot of thoughts in my head, some of which I wish I could share if I found the time, and others that aren’t yet ready for publication. That being said, this year I have been much more productive overall – I have started studying earlier, I have time managed better, I am more productive with my side projects and initiatives, and I am much happier in my personal life compared to this same time last year.

I started setting lots of goals at the beginning of the summer, both big and small, and I started devising my action plan for achieving them. These are goals for all aspects of my life, from school to career to hobbies to personal life. Part of my increased productivity is due to my current time management practices – the way I plan to achieve my goals, and the way that affects how I structure the use of my time.

While I don’t think I’m an expert in goal setting and achieving by any means, I thought it might be useful to share some of my thoughts on the subject and the types of strategies I have been employing since a few months ago. Hopefully you guys find this helpful.

The Big Goal

Where do you want to go? That’s the first question you need to ask yourself when setting goals, especially big goals. How do you picture yourself at the end of your achievement? Before you can plan out how to achieve your goal, you need to know exactly what that goal is. An action plan is disjointed and possibly useless if you’re not pointed in the right direction – and to be pointed in the right direction, you have to know exactly where you are going and what you want to achieve.

So ask yourself, what exactly is this big goal that I want to achieve? Is it a dream job? Is it a certain level of personal health and fitness? Is it being able to purchase a new home?

Whatever your big goal is, you need to know exactly what it is. You need to be able to clearly visualize yourself and what it means to have succeeded.

Long and Short Term Goals

So we know our destination – now how do we figure out what to do?

As a bit of a basis for goal setting and achieving, I’m sure everyone has heard of the terms long-term and short-term goals. While long-term and short-term goals can be independent and unrelated (e.g. you can have both the goal to get into medical school and the goal to learn how to play a song on the piano over the next few weeks at the same time), they can also be interrelated, with long-term goals depending on the short-term goals.

One example is how the long term goal of getting an overall 90+ average on the biology course depends on the short term goals of getting high marks on each individual test, lab report, group project, etc. Of course, each of these short-term goals can be broken down into even shorter-term goals, such as studying X number of hours a week, planning group meetings, etc.

One more example: if your big goal is to get into medical school, that means getting an interview. In order to get an interview, you need to have a strong application. In order to have a strong application, you need to have good grades, good MCAT, and good essay. In order to have good grades, MCAT, and essay, you need to study hard, be involved, etc. You can even break it down further. For example, you may want to manage your involvements by setting goals to achieve experiences in leadership, teamwork, healthcare, and research, and so on.

The point is that depending on how detailed you want to create your plan, your long-term goals can be broken down into smaller, more easily and more obviously achievable goals. The idea is not to get caught up in the final goal, but to realize how to break up that final goal into smaller, achievable tasks, that will eventually lead you to your desired success. Take the time to figure out what those necessary small steps are, and in what order you need to achieve them.

Action Planning

While there are many ways to develop action plans, what I personally do is create an action plan that combines goal setting, action plans, and timelines. That is, I set goals based on what I want to achieve by certain time points, and work backwards to determine what I need to achieve by subsequently nearer time points. That might sound confusing, so check out the following example (this is pretty similar to the document I personally am using):

Basically, I ask myself, in order to achieve my long-term goal, what do I need to achieve by the end of the year? Okay, so if I want to achieve that, what must be done by the end of the month? By the end of this week?

And then, before the start of the next week (or before the start of a new month), I update the plan as necessary.

Goal Adjustments

Keep in mind that your short term goals and action plan are subject to change. Things won’t always work out the way you want. Sometimes there will be road blocks that slow down your progress. There’s no shame in having to adjust your goals and plans.

The beauty of creating a plan is that it is very easy to visualize where you are, and that it helps you to be productive. If I’m bored and am looking for something to do, it’s very easy for me to open up my action plan document and see what things I still need to do to achieve my goals for the week. It’s quite motivating, especially as you see the progress you make, checking off items you complete during the week.

Anyways, I hope that helps. Got a question/comment about goal setting? Let me know!