3-Stage Goals

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Three steps to one goalHow many times have you set a goal…and just missed it?

For a lot of us, “just missing it” is tantamount to failure. For recovering perfectionists like myself, it’s all too easy to see success in terms of black and white, and the goals that get us there as pass/fail tests.

How do we change that?

Expand your definition of success

As I said to Elizabeth Sosnow in the comments here a few weeks back, it’s often more helpful to measure the distance we’ve traveled than the distance we’ve yet to go. The first is real accomplishment; the second still unknown.

That “miles traveled” measure can be enormously helpful when we’ve lost sight of a big goal, or feel overwhelmed by the time or distance it’ll take to get there. But it can be even more helpful when we build it in from the get-go.

Set three stages

As good as the SMART methodology is for setting goals and objectives, it doesn’t account for the unknown. But we can. By setting three stages of success we account for the inevitable ups and downs of life, of things beyond our control.

The Aspirational

This is probably the one you set first, particularly since most of us like to aim high and go for the “stretch.” It’s the butt-kicking one, the one you know you could achieve, IF you really buckle down and devote the time, energy, and resources you need to…AND if the universe cooperates, which it often doesn’t.

It’s the one that feels just out of reach, but you know it’s possible with focus and hard work.

Grow our LinkedIn Group to 250 members (a 25% increase) by the end of the year.
Lose 30 pounds by the end of the year. (~2 pounds a week)

The Achievable

This is the one that, if we look at past performance, is likely where we’ll end up. Since your Aspirational goal or objective requires significant additional resources (if only in effort and concentration), set this one based on what you can do, given no or modest additional investment. Working backwards from the Aspirational stage, adjust the timeframe, or the measurement…or both.

Grow our LinkedIn Group to 220 members (a 10% increase) by the end of the year.
Lose 15 pounds by the end of the year. (~1 pound a week)

The Acceptable

This is the one you’d be happy with—and consider an achievement of note—even if everything that could go wrong did. I.e., it accounts for the abnormal course of reality: Unexpected budget cuts, employee absences, competitor moves, leadership (and priority) transitions, etc. Holidays, in-laws, surprise parties, bad days/weeks/months at work (or no work), life events, etc.

Grow our LinkedIn Group to 220 members in six months.
Lose 5 pounds by the end of the year. (a little less than ~1/2 pound a week)

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By setting three stages up front we suddenly turn a single measure of success into a range. We acknowledge what might hold us back AND, at the same time, take away our excuses for not moving towards our goals despite the obstacles we might face.

Three stages, one target…more success.

See how it works? Would it work for you?

(And if you’re looking for a way to keep on track while pursuing your goals? Our friend Chris Brogan suggests we keep asking questions, in a post that inspired this one.)

Find more like this: change management, Productivity, Self Improvement , , , , , ,

By

Tamsen McMahon helps people get from where they are to where they're going. She's also the Vice President of Digital Strategy at Allen & Gerritsen, and a Weight Watchers leader. She writes on individual change at PersonalCartography.com.

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  • Duncalator

    The three stages may work very well for some, or they may inspire other techniques to keep goal setting helpful instead of overwhelming, but the idea in the piece to look at “miles traveled” and to not let missed goals be the end of the project, and depressing too, is an idea that never will go out of style.

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    Thanks, Duncan. When we can't see where we're going, it can be hard to go on. I've found it so helpful to keep an eye on the rearview mirror, as it were, as a reminder that what I've passed through is how I've gotten where I am. Thanks for commenting!

  • http://www.BeyondThePedway.com Tim Jahn

    You're right, it's a lot better to look at what you have accomplished than what you've yet to (and hope to) accomplish.

    I love this three stage idea. I'm going to try this. :)

  • Janschwartz

    This was an ah ha! post for me. I can't believe I never thought of “stepping” goals. It's a great idea, especially in this economy where things are a bit iffy. I'm going to try this because our goals for the end of this year are truly aspirational–determining what would be achievable and acceptable will, minimally, take some pain away.

  • http://www.youintegrate.com Kneale Mann

    How often have we used the elephant reference in regards to something we would like to avoid for the fear of a negative outcome? Then we use it again when looking at large problems, one bite at a time.

    Poor elephants.

    This is excellent and does give us the chance to breathe beneath a seemingly insurmountable goal. We have all read endless articles on how to believe in ourselves and overcome the odds but if we attack things in stages – as you suggest – those odds don't seem to be stacked against us as much.

    Great piece, Tamsen!

  • Linda

    I really like this method of goal setting Tamsen. You can strive for the Aspirational and reach either The Achievable or The Acceptable and still make progress. They need to teach this method in schools. Wish I'd had this in my back pocket way back when.

  • http://www.womanzworld.com/ Natalie Sisson

    Yes agreed. I've always been a goal setter which means since a young age I've written them down, looked back a few times on them and at the end of the year realised I'd achieved around 70% of them. Not bad really given the lack of structure.
    These days I aim to limit my goals to meet my one page business plan – so there's the stretch goal (like your aspirational) and then the achievable goal. Backed up with actual tactics and a strategy on how to reach this with weekly activities it's amazing how often you achieve them. Just writing them down is a great start!

  • clintstonebraker

    This article came at the perfect time! I had a meeting with my assistant this morning in which we discussed some of the goals we have for the last quarter of the year. The big goals are a bit daunting but provide us with tremendous motivation. I love the suggestion of “The Achievable” and “The Acceptable”. I hadn't thought of those and they are extremely helpful. Thanks again!

  • elizabethsosnow

    Thanks for the mention, Tamsen! This post struck a chord with me.

    I was reminded of a business intelligence consulting firm we had as a client for many years. Their job was to essentially predict the future for their customers, based on the intelligence they collected.

    How did they do it? After they collected the data, they would invent 3-4 different potential future scenarios for their customer (scenario based planning). The next step was to develop a robust business strategy that could potentially work in each of those “futures.”

    When I read your “3 stages,” it occurred to me that they could also function as 3 scenarios. What if you used your goals to inspire a personal strategy that gave you the best chance of success, no matter what stage of your journey?

  • James Almos

    I can't help but see it as anything other than a serious mistake to label the third-tier goal as “success.” It is exactly what it's labeled here: acceptable achievement. Calling a near-miss (or not-so-near-miss) a success is being unfair to yourself – you're devaluing all those times that you went all the way.

    The latter half of your example is the perfect demonstration: if you put in the effort to lose 30 pounds in 15 weeks, and your friends/family/whoever acted as if it were only slight different than losing 5, you'd be offended. So why would you want to do that to yourself?

  • http://kozancity.10001mb.com Kozan City

    Nice Comment…

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    Glad it resonated! And let me know how it works for you…

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    We often set goals with very little information under our belts. When there's a timeframe attached (as there is to the most effective goals and objectives), partway through that timeframe, we suddenly have a lot more information. That's a great time to determine just how realistic our original plans were–or weren't–and to update our terms for success.

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    Thanks, Kneale! I've used this approach a lot in coaching people through weight loss, so I've seen it in action often over the years. What's fascinating is that, when we set only the aspirational goal, it's easy to set it aside at the first indication that we might not get there. When we set all three, human nature takes over in the best way: in the face of challenge, people will often redouble their efforts towards the aspirational goal. It's almost as if giving ourselves permission to see a wider range of success also gives us the freedom to risk more to get to the top.

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    I'm glad it's in your back pocket now! It's a method that arose after lots of years watching people (myself included) who would beat themselves up over “not enough” progress and then stop, when celebrating the progress that *had* been made would have preserved forward movement. As they say, it's about “progress, not perfection.”

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    Writing them down is a huge part of it! It not only makes them real, but gives us more brainspace to devote to achieving them. And 70% is great! I had a friend once who said that he'd rather make 100 decisions and have only 70 of them be right, than to make 10 perfect decisions in the same amount of time. It's stuck with me ever since…

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    You're welcome! As I said to Kneale, above, some folks would think that by setting the Achievable and Acceptable levels of succes that we'd decrease our motivation to keep after the Aspirational. But the motivation to set a lofty goal in the first place doesn't usually leave us–it stays there and keeps pushing us on. The other goals help ensure that we attain a level of progress AND an energy that moves us forward. Decrying a missed goal usually stops us in our tracks.

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    I toyed with framing this as scenario planning (since that's what it is), so I'm glad to know you had a similar thought. The 3 futures in this case account for varying levels of outside interference. Yes, we're all the masters and mistresses of our destiny…to a point. Plenty of things happen that are beyond our control. While we can anticipate a number of them, there will always be those that come out of left field. This approach lets us pre-plan our reactions to those unforeseen events, and gives us a baseline to cleave to.

  • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

    It's not an approach that will work for everyone. The point of the approach is to define for yourself the *range* of success that you'd feel proud of and satisfied with. That range may be a single data point. It may be a big spread. It's about what works best for each of us and how we're wired.

  • http://www.paulylacosta.com Paul L’Acosta

    Excellent post Tamsen. You have no idea how happy it makes me feel whenever I find articles debunking the myths set by SMART goals. I remember them from my college years and they never work out as efficient as some believers think (precisely for what you say about “unknown” elements), much less in this day and age. Churning down goals into three categories definitely makes them easy to digest and execute. Can’t wait to give it a try when I get to the office tomorrow. See you soon! ~Paul

    • http://brasstackthinking.com Tamsen McMahon (@tamadear)

      Glad to hear I’m not the only one who’s been frustrated with the limitations of SMART goals. While they can be incredibly helpful in making sure we’re thoughtful about the goals we set, I’ve found they can also be quite limiting, particularly if we never go back and update them to reflect what’s actually happening. Thanks for the comment–and the tweet!

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  • http://www.goalsontrack.com Harry @ GoalsOnTrack

    Great post!

    Personally I find that it’ll do ourselves more good if we don’t define a success for a goal as a simple YES/NO metric. Instead, we can use a percentage on the overall progress, and define a success as a range on it, such as 80% or above etc.