Written by: Alicia Kangas, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Setting goals is an important foundation for awakening your true purpose and finding success. This is because goals help us to concentrate our actions and energy on the end result while measuring our progress concerning the goals that we have set.
However, many people acknowledge that a gap exists between setting goals and being able to develop and communicate important goals that produce sustained action while generating transformational results.
It has been proven that there are clear links between motivation, performance, and goal setting. Along with imposing goals on yourself, you should also use goal setting as a tool to create a sense of direction and purpose. The environment of goal setting is crucial because it provides the conditions necessary to be effective in all your pursuits.
The Importance of Goals in Living a Purposeful Life:
Goals reflect your purpose and point you toward the expected quality, quantity, or rate of performance. As a process, setting goals always creates discrepancies because of the gap between our current situation and the desired future state. Additionally, the process of setting goals affects our overall level of motivation, our belief system, and our capabilities to perform.
The discrepancy that is created by goal setting should be interpreted as a constructive discontent that will motivate us toward persistent and sustainable goal-relevant behavior. Three conditions need to be met if the process of setting goals is going to be motivating.
You need to have a commitment to your part in the process. This means that you need to have a "whatever it takes" attitude in achieving your goals. If you have a lack of commitment, you will have a lack of motivation.
You also need to set specific and unambiguous goals. This will make it easier to access your progress and adjust accordingly. Finally, you need to have goal-directed behavior and happiness.
A purposeful action is a key element in the goal-setting theory. If you do not have goal-directed action, it will be impossible for you to achieve your purpose.
Harnessing the Power of Setting Goals:
There are powerful tools that you can use to put goal setting to work. These tools take into consideration human dynamics as they help us to generate goals that will lead us to purposeful and effective behavior.
Self-Efficacy:
The concept of self-efficacy is extremely important to setting and achieving goals. Efficacy is the belief that you hold about your ability to perform a certain task. These beliefs will affect the way we set goals, as well as the choices that we make about the activities we engage in. Efficacy can also refer to the measure of how much effort we are willing to expand and the length of time we will persist in the face of challenges or failure.
Setting short-term, sub-goals will raise your self-efficacy as compared to a situation where only long-term goals exist. Your goals should be challenging, clear, and they should consist of a target and a timeframe. The level of self-confidence should be commensurate with the level of goal difficulty.
Task Complexity:
When you set goals for complex tasks, you want to ensure that you include short-term goals because they provide you with immediate guidelines and incentives for better performance. Long-term goals alone can be too far removed and difficult for you to connect with. Goal setting requires subject-specific knowledge, realistic expectations, and appropriate strategies on how to accomplish the task.
Goal Commitment:
When you are committed to your goals, the relationship between your performance and the goal increases. As the goals become more difficult, the level of commitment must be raised to inject the effort that is required to attain those goals. The two main categories of factors that are needed in enhancing your goal commitment are prioritization and self-belief.
You must believe that you will attain the goals you have set as well as make achieving your goals a priority. To succeed in achieving your goals, you must link them to the bigger picture.
Feedback:
For goal setting to be effective, it must be paired with the appropriate feedback. Timely feedback will provide you with the necessary information about whether your picture of reality is properly aligned with what you need to achieve your goals. When you receive ongoing feedback, it indicates that you are paying attention to the progress you are making in achieving the goals you have set.
Satisfaction:
Satisfaction in your life tends to increase when you exceed your goals. As you increase your number of successes, your overall satisfaction also grows. To incorporate satisfaction when setting your goals, you need to set challenging goals that improve your interest. This will help you discover the pleasurable aspects of accomplishing your tasks.
Alicia Kangas, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Alicia is the Founder, Director, and CEO of HOLISTIC RIVERS, INC.
It is her mission to help others to awaken to their own truth, in order to ultimately create a lifestyle of pure abundance, happiness, freedom, peace, and joy, through a holistic approach to their overall lifestyle!
Alicia is an International Award-Winning Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Registered SomaYoga Teacher, Executive Business Coach, Positive World Influencer, Award-Winning Entrepreneur, and Published Author.
She is one of our Executive Contributors who we have selected as one of our prestigious honorees for our 2021 CREA Global Award in recognition of Alicia being one of the top entrepreneurs, influential leaders, and innovators from across the globe.
Alicia has been featured on ABC, NBC, FOX, USA TODAY, CBS, and 500 + other media companies.
She also has a Biography which resides in the Dictionary of Marquis Who's Who in America, where they endeavor to profile the leaders of American society who are influencing their nation's development. Biographies in Marquis Who’s Who are of individuals whose achievements and contributions to society have made them subjects of widespread reference interest and inquiry.
