A Better Way To Goal Setting - stop wasting your time on December 31st ...

It is the time of the year, when you can hear them all over …. the people talking about their new year’s resolutions. Those statements who are intentionally right and at the same time useless.
But for all the good intentions, only a tiny fraction of us keep our resolutions or stick to our goals (the reality is shocking according to University of Scranton's research):

Just  8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals.

No surprise, when you look at the 2015's most often mentioned new year's resolutions: 

1. finding more time for myself
2. losing weight/ improving vitality
3. improving relationships

If you look at various statistics around the world, you can see that most often those new year’s resolutions are based on fundamental behavior changes. People start to think about technical solutions for the problems they want to solve in the new year: things like a bluetooth/ WIFI enabled scale, a new fitbit and a new work-out outfit and other gadgets they believe will make the difference. And the result: Technically most people what it takes to realize their goals and dreams - reality is that they still struggle, even when those new gadgets and devices do the very best to support their users. The users who then get frustrated after a while because they believe they failed. 

What shall we do instead?

The point is: you need to anchor goals. The idea of SMART goals (specific, measurable, activating, realistic, timed) is ?ok“ - but it misses an important point: If we ask leaders to define their vision and their goals they do a system 2 thinking exercise. The result: they typically create a person they believe the should become (because they have been told by media, ?friends“, family etc. The problem: As soon as we run out of energy, time and our brains get stressed, we lose the ability to make decisions which are in line with our system 2 decision making circuitry. We rely primarily on system 1 thinking habits (for system 1/ system 2 thinking please consult D. Kahneman's work). 

Now - you have 2 choices:

1. Either you slow down appr. 4000 times a day whenever you make a decision and you evaluate that decision whether it is in line with your goals/ dreams/ vision
2. Or you invest a bit more time and you make your goals more strong and more impactful

The Better Way: System 1 Goal Setting

Here are the 6 steps to avoid the new year’s resolution frustration and how to anchor your goals strongly whenever you are defining goals. An approach every leader should do regularly and an approach leaders could inject into their teams.

1. Ponder Your Past: Explore who and what has shaped your personality, your patterns and your basic beliefs. The things which are deeply hardwired (in your system 1). Write those beliefs down.
2. Make Your Beliefs Explicit: Share your basic beliefs - either you read them out loudly and record them or share them with a trusted person. Making things explicit helps to get clear!
3. Define Belief Based Goals: When looking at your basic beliefs - what can you draw from them when it comes to plan the future? Write down goals that are in line with your basic beliefs.
4. Make The Impact Explicit: Read those goals out - read out your values & basic beliefs. Share them and discuss them before sticking to them. Ensure, that you also write down the impact those goals have on your life.
5. SMARTen Your Goals: Now it is the time to think how you want to make them happen. It is ok to use the SMART formula. 

So far so good - here is the last step:

1.  Write Down Your Hypothesis: Think about the goal and think about why you have not realized this one so far. What is holding you back so far? What is your BIG  ASSUMPTION telling you ?if I am doing x, the result will by y“? How far do you see that your big assumption is the only thing holding you back. I hear quite often things like: ?I would like to become more inspiring, but I fear that my colleagues think less of me if I am becoming more vocal and personal.“ or ?I would like to lose 10 pounds but I fear that I cannot eat more healthy with all my travels.“ 

Do you see what I mean? Even the gadgets are there to support us - the big assumption is the thing which holds us back. The fear of failure, the fear of getting rejected by the social group we are belonging or want to belong to. Here is what I am asking all of us to do: Instead of holding back, test whether your assumption is right. I have a hypothesis: most of us are holding back because our assumption is wrong and so far we did not even tested it. By the way: I am saying ?test“ - I am not using the ?t-word“ I am asking all of us to avoid (see my other blog ?Leaders avoid the t-word“.

Now - think about what you really want to do in order to make a difference in 2016 and what has holding you back so far.

Give 100% and go for it!

About the author: 

Dr. Kiefer is a “pragmatic visionary” – his career led him from industry through top management consulting into the world of building future leaders and boosting sales effectiveness. As Line Manager, Executive Coach and Trainer he is deeply engaged working with neuroscientists around the world in order to enable his clients to make a difference as leader. An entrepreneur, speaker, coach & trainer with over 15 years of experience in driving successful change processes in the professional services industry and driving large-scale strategic projects. He has worked in various cultures and geographies, such as Europe, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, North America. As former athlete and outdoor sports enthusiast and father of two kids, he offers a good balance of being ?edgy“ and ?realistic“ in his approach to drive organizational performance.

 His underlying theme: Driving people to think smarter in order to maximizing engagement and achieving better business results by giving 100%.