All of us want to create positive goals and be able to achieve them. With an effective guide of some of the popular goal setting activities, you can increase your chances of achieving your goals. Follow these activities in your daily life and use some goal setting apps to increase your goal fulfillment with success.

What is Goal Setting?

How many times have you approached a new day with a list of positive activities and goals you plan to achieve, only to end up realizing you are still stuck at the initial tasks? Setting clear goals provides a framework to achieve better in your career and life. With an effective goal setting plan, you can motivate and direct all your energy in achieving them. When you set a goal, you aim for a set of behaviors- whether it is about achieving proficiency in a sport, mastering your favorite subject, paying off your debt, or aiming for a promotion- creating a goal helps you define your life ahead.

6 Goal Setting Activities to Try now

Creating goals is great, but the real challenge lies in achieving them. While goal setting is a short term exercise, achieving them requires a commitment to habits and mindset. With small and consistent steps and effectively following some goal-setting activities, you can take a step closer to achieving your goals. Here we have listed six effective goal-setting activities for your practice.

1) Maintain a goal-setting journal

Writing down all your goals is an effective way to remember your aspirations. It is useful to spend at least 10 minutes a day to review and write down your goals. You should write about what you think you can achieve and also what you aim to accomplish, even if it is challenging. According to research by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at California University, the practice of writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve it. Journaling your goals help you stay focused and motivated about your work because you get a visual representation of your journey. You need to soak yourself with these reminders every day and track your progress daily.

2) Try backward goal setting

Backward goal setting is one of the most effective goal setting exercises that help you focus on the work. The idea behind this activity is to change your perspective about the goals and switch the approach to achieving it. Through this activity, you start your plan with the end goal in mind. Instead of starting with the first step, you start with the ultimate goal and work backward towards achieving it. This works as a reverse strategy and helps you think about the larger goals in life, and often deliver results which traditional goal-setting tools fail to provide.

3) Plan your one year from now

The ‘one year from now’ exercise is one of the best goal-setting activities for adults. Most often, you plan your short term goals for the day or week. It is very rare that you plan an entire year ahead with your goals and accomplishments. Creating short term goals is one of the most likely causes of procrastination because you are unable to plan your life ahead. It can be highly rewarding to think of how your life would be a year from now- right from your work role, personal responsibilities, finances, relationships, and your mental peace. Once you have a year’s plan, you can start thinking about the steps required to achieve them. You will be able to create practical action points and achievable timelines for all your goals and build an effective goal-setting plan for them. When you have an understanding of the consequences of achieving the goals, you will always aim for a hundred percent accomplishment. 

4) Setting SMART goals

Started as a management technique, SMART goals have now become the go-to goal-setting activity followed by everyone. One of the most time-tested models, this way of goal setting, is sure to give you remarkable results. SMART goals stand for-

• Specific: You need to be specific about all your goals and define them clearly.
• Measurable: Each goal must have a defined metric to measure the progress.
• Achievable: It is important to keep your goals achievable and not over commit to them.
• Realistic: Your goals should be realistic to yourself and add to the ultimate goals of your life.
• Time-Bound: You need to set realistic deadlines for your tasks and focus on the steps required to achieve them.

You can easily apply the SMART model of goal setting for all your tasks- simple or complex; work, or personal goals. It is a highly adaptable model with clear structures for planning and offers remarkable results in improving your productivity and achieving your goals.

5) Use the GROW goal setting model

Like the SMART goal model, the GROW goal setting model was adopted as a business management tool, but it is now widely used by common people. GROW stands for-

• Goal: This step involves creating and defining your goals to align with your larger vision in life.
• Reality: This step helps understand the current situation- what are the challenges you face and how to overcome them. 
• Options: This step involves understanding the possibilities and resources you have to achieve your goals.
• Will: This step involves a deep understanding of your will power. How strong is your will power to make new changes and tap into your available resources to achieve your goal?

When you work on the GROW model, you build a deeper self-awareness and get a clear picture of your current aspirations and the efforts required to achieve it.

6) Do not give up

Most often, you tend to lose your self-control when you fail at your tasks. This lack of self-control further restricts you from setting up new goals. It is important that you do not give on your existing or new goals even when you fail. Instead, you need to pinpoint the goals and put in extra effort in achieving them the next time. Failing in one goal does not mean that you have failed in all. Hence, it is essential to motivate yourself to try new ways and never give up on achieving your goals.

Best Goal-setting Apps

You probably spend a large portion of your day on smartphones, so have you considered using digital technology to your advantage for goal setting? There is a multitude of apps and functions available on your phones to help you achieve your goals faster. Whether you want to track your work, plan your finances, or lose weight, there is an app for everything. We have listed four popular goal-setting apps for you can use for your goal fulfillment.

• Goals on Track: This app has an excellent in-depth functionality that helps you create goals and milestones. You can add your goals and add priority tags to them. You can add comments and track your progress and status of the task at any point in time. You can also collaborate with your team members and add their tasks to keep track of the entire team. 
• Way of Life: This is a daily habit tracker that allows you to create multiple goals regularly and check them off as you finish it. It has built-in features for notifications and reminders that help you stay focused on your goals and achieve them successfully with a user-friendly interface.
• Momentum: As the name suggests, Momentum helps you create and set your goals in a phased and achievable manner. You can create various groups of tasks and add the sub-tasks within it. The apps give you a clear understanding of all the small actionable steps required to achieve your larger goal.
• Habit List: Similar to your offline method of journaling, the Habit List is your online journal. You can create and add your regular habits to the app and track them regularly. You can check if all the habits are being followed as planned and improve your goals and accomplishments.

These apps are a great way to keep your goals on track and measure the progress regularly. Most people do not love push notifications, but these apps are an exception because you will love these reminders and motivate yourself to achieve your goals.