When it comes to goals, motivation and mindset is vital and is often overlooked. However, you can not achieve goals with mindset alone. You must also have a plan and ensure that your relationships, environment and routines are all set up to help take you towards your goal, helping you to achieve and not holding you back.
Again SMART goal setting focuses way too much on quick actions, not necessarily doing things which will have the biggest impact or the best result. This is another reason while I don't really like it as a tool and tend to shy away from using it with my clients. Often people who use SMART goal setting focus so much on making it specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timebound that their goal gets watered down or diluted, losing meaning or; they think it is realistic and achievable but they have not taken a moment to step back and see the chess board and all the moving parts. They do not know what things in their life could be used to help them achieve their goals faster or more easily (strengths) or they have not been able to accept trade-offs that exist, or plan for resistance.
When this happens, we tend to see more roadblocks or barriers and achieving our goals feels a lot harder than it should be. This can be super frustrating as we feel like we have "done everything right" and still aren't getting the outcome.
So what is the alternative to SMART goal setting?
When working with clients I am a major fan of mind-mapping. Why? It allows clients freedom to explore their goals and be creative and it really supports different neurological processes and ways of thinking too. It is a really inclusive tool where you can use, words or pictures and displays information visually so that the inter-related parts can then be linked in together.
The happy stuff
To start I get clients to list their goal in the middle of the page, on the left side of the page, I then get them to think about all the positives of their goal, what they will gain, how it aligns with their values, strengths they have to build on, allies that can help, what excites them and motivates them about it.... all the really positive stuff. Prior to doing this activity, a lot of clients would treat the change like a brand new goal and a clean slate, when in reality - there are lots of things they already have that can really help them, make it easier and this can make the change feel a lot more attainable. Clients feel less alone and more empowered.
The not so happy stuff
With this done we move to the right and take a moment to go through the downsides and this is the most important part. The reason for this, is that this is where the roadblocks and barriers will most likely come from, these are where the cracks form. So by putting it out there it allows us to see these things in a factual and analytical way so we can do things about it - rather than wait for them to sneak up and derail us.
On the right side I will ask them questions like, what are some of the forces working against you, what are some of your fears and self -limiting beliefs, how will this goal affect others, what will you lost if you achieve this goal, how does this goal clash with your personal values? Often when working with clients, this can be a bit of a shock for them. As often we go into a change, thinking it will be that there are no downsides, there are no trade-offs, but this is not the case. Say for example you have a goal to save $100 a week to go on a dream holiday during summer - sounds pretty amazing! Let's throw some hypotheticals at it, what happens if your partner is a spend thrift and is not aligned with your goal? What if you have a personal value of generosity or your love language is gift giving (how will you manage this trade off in the moment?) What if you have decided to cut back on eating out with friends, how will you speak to them about it? What if you have failed before and have a mindset that you "can't save". What if in achieving this goal you miss out on some fun during the year to get this great incentive at the end.
When explained this way, we can see the power of it. If I was doing SMART goals, I would say "I will save $100 each week by Christmas by stopping eating out with friends and I will transfer the money out into a special account each week before anything else so I am not tempted to spend it" - that does not really do anything to help set you up for success, or plan effectively or manage the psychological fallout that then happens throughout the year as cracks arise.
Reality check
Once clients have then shown both the positives and the negatives, we have a brief reality check to pause for a moment and with all things considered check that this is the right goal for them at this moment in time with all things considered. One of three things will happen; one, it is a clear yes; two, the client immediately identifies that there are some small adjustments which can be made to make it a clear yes (about 10%); or three, very rarely the answer would be a hard no (this would be less than 1%) and we look for another goal that is better aligned to where their life is at right now. This is such a critical, and again often overlooked step. Why? Because in coaching we try and encourage conscious choice. This helps to empower and sustain and to accept any trade-offs that might happen. It helps people to feel in control and then from here we start to plan (but more on that next week).
To make this even easier, this weeks free tool steps out this process for you with a template you can use as a guide and next week, we will then move onto creating meaningful and powerful actions to support you in achieving your change.
As always if you need some additional help working through your goals and getting the help of an expert, mumshine is open for bookings both virtually and in person.
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