There’s all types of goals. Fitness goals, financial goals, and many other personal goals. However, plenty of goals are not reached because of the fact that they are not realistic enough. In this blog post, we will go over the reason why setting realistic goals is so important. For this post we reached out to a couple of experts and the tips they had to offer. We also have a post about how to set and achieve realistic goals if you’d like to check that out as well. Lets dive into it.
We managed to speak with Olga Shapovalova at Headway, which is an app that focuses on bite sized information from the worlds best selling books so you could learn more quickly and efficiently. Olga is a Strategic Management Expert at Headway who focuses heavily on goal setting and personal development. Olga spoke to use specifically about how setting realistic bite sized goals create consistency. Let’s elaborate further below.
Setting Realistic Goals Creates Consistency
Because you’re easily able to focus on each task at hand on a daily basis, setting realistic goals increases your consistency.
When you start a new project, at first glance it seems like you could do everything surrounding that project.
However you’ll come to realize that there are more components to each task that you would first expect.
For example, when it comes to starting a YouTube channel you’ll need to edit the videos, work on scripts and more. If you focused on instagram, twitter, and every other social media account while trying to do your videos you’ll realize that you won’t have time for all of it.
This is because those other social media tasks have more involved in them than you first expected. For instance, the Instagram algorithm is a lot to learn, and if you dive into every single aspect of the Instagram algorithm you will end up losing track of the main goal, which is to make videos.
Over time you could figure out a way to push your content via social media effectively, but by setting more refined (realistic) goals you’ll be able to focus on the task at hand.
We also had the opportunity to talk to Dr. Hayley Nelson, who is the founder of the Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience. She also gave us some feed back which we will go over for the rest of this blog post!
Setting Realistic Goals Increases Self Confidence
Setting realistic goals has the ability to increase self confidence. Here’s the simple reason why. It’s because you did what you said you were going to do. Keeping promises you made to yourself is one of the biggest ways you could increase self-confidence.
When you set unrealistic goals, it begins to feel as if nothing is ever possible for you and that you’re just one of the people in this world that isn’t able to accomplish anything.
If you’re someone who thinks about setting new goals and shy’s away from new ideas, that may be a result of not setting realistic goals in the past.
The next goal you set, move forwards regardless of how you feel and set up realistic goals in the process. One key is to pay attention to your output, instead of focusing on the results (at first).
Let’s take a weight loss goal for instance. If you start by saying you’re going to cut out 1000 calories per day, there’s a big chance you’ll give up. If you cut out 200 calories per day instead, it’s much easier to achieve. These mini achievements added up will result in an increase of self confidence.
Setting Realistic Goals Builds Discipline
When you set smaller and realistic goals, it allows you to slowly build up your discipline. Discipline is like a muscle. If you could sit down and do 30 minutes of focused work every day, over time you will be able to increase that output without much struggle.
Setting realistic goals allows you to start smaller and eventually build up to the point where you could do more and be more productive.
For example, when I first started with my blogging business, sitting down and writing one blog post was very difficult (I had a hard time sitting still and putting in the work). Now, my day is filled with writing my own blog posts, writing blog posts for other people (freelance writing), and other responsibilities I have. I do all of this without any struggle.
Because I started small, I was able to slowly build up my discipline and increase my output.
Setting Realistic Goals Avoids Disappointment
If your goals are unrealistic, it’s likely that you’re going to put way to much on your plate. When you do this, it’s highly likely that you won’t be able to reach all of your goals in the time frame you expected.
This leads to disappointment, and also hesitation when it comes to setting new goals in the future.
Conclusion
Setting realistic goals is important for success. However, it’s important to note that the realistic goals you set in the beginning will not always be your goals.
Olga let us know the importance of analysing your progress from your initial goals. In other words you need to mark down what went well, what you need to improve on, and lastly things you could add to the process.
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[…] Dr. Saara insists that when setting goals, instead of coming up with a super long list of actions, focusing on 1-3 specific actions that are realistic and achievable is very important. […]