Setting Sustainable Goals: Securing a better future through Sustainability

“Working hard does not translate to success, it can wear you out and become exhausted thereby taking you far away from success”.

What Works?

Many people are confused because there is no clear concise plan; working without a clear vision is like traveling without a destination. The essence of defining goals gives direction and makes the road smooth. Setting goals will not only give direction but also define success criteria, and what you intend to achieve with an action. Before you put all your efforts into a task, it is important to ask yourself what will success look like, a desired outcome because knowing this will answer the question of how; how will you achieve the desired outcome. This can be related to travel. Knowing the destination and purpose will help you to plan your itinerary. The Goal setting process serves as a motivational tool that helps people focus on their efforts, stay on track, and measure their progress. It can help increase accountability and ensure that resources are used effectively and efficiently.

If setting goals is important, then how can we set sustainable goals for personal development, business, career, etc.?

How to Set a Goal?

The first step to setting a goal is to consider what you intend to achieve, and then commit to it. Showing commitment to a course is a true display of excellence.

In setting personal goals, consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future). Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision-making. There should be alignment in your goals cutting across several categories such as in the:

• Career – What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you intend to achieve by choosing the career?
• Financial – How much do you want to earn per week or monthly, and by what stage of your career or age? How can you relate this to your career goals?
• Education – Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will be required to achieve other goals?
• Public Service/ Community Development – Do you care about others or you are just concerned about your personal development? If you care about making the world a better place, how can you contribute your own quota, what can you do differently for the common good?

The categories are not limited to the above identified; it entails general living categories including pleasure, family life, physical health, and even social life among others.

Be Smart!

A sustainable goal must be smart taking cognizant of some determinants that determine feasibility. A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. SMART usually stands for:

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• S – Specific (Significant)
• M – Measurable (Meaningful).
• A – Attainable (Action-Oriented).
• R – Relevant (Realistic).
• T – Time-bound (Trackable).

Setting goals using the above will help to create a clearly defined path, set success criteria, and ensure timely assessment of where you are coming from, where you are, and where you are going. Achieving a goal will lead to setting a new goal with the chain endless.

?One is setting goals and another is setting sustainable goals. In securing a better future, sustainability is important. Sustainability refers to the ability to maintain or support a process continuously over time. It is worth noting that change is inevitable, the economic/technological demand changes with time in a world where innovation is setting the pace of development and business operation. With the dynamism of the world setting performance-related goals, and not outcome goal is a strategy to deal with unforeseen circumstances. ?This principle emphasizes failing to meet goals does not matter much, just as long as you learn from the experience. You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control! In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy to mention but a few.

Finally, when you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve and thereby strengthens you to go for more.

As #itengineers, #businessowners?

Secure the future now by setting sustainable goals

Be Smart