Goal Setting: Difference between Goal Setting and Wishful Thinking

Difference between Goal Setting and Wishful Thinking

Most of the people do not go beyond "wishful thinking". And they mistake and confuse their wishful thinking with goal setting or target setting. More often than not, these people do not attain their wishes. Just desiring something or wishing something in a vague manner does not lead them to their achievements. It is difficult- if wishes were horses, everyone would ride. But in real life it is not seen that way.

There is a significant difference between wishes and putting wishes into a format of goal setting.

In large numbers of our seminars and workshops, when we request the participants to jot down their goals or targets, they scribble something like:

•    Getting quicker promotions and raise in salary

•    Getting rich

•    Owning a nice house

•    Traveling to foreign countries

•    Blissful family life

•    Excellent education to children

And so on.

Are these expressions of their targets or goals?

The answer is: These are definitely not targets or goals. They are mere wishes or desires. Goals or targets are much more than simply stating your desire or wish of wanting something to happen. For achieving your goal you need to clearly define exactly what you wish to accomplish otherwise your chances of success get significantly lowered.

Then how to convert these wishes into meaningful targets or goals? We will show you by taking just one example.

Example:

The wish or desire is: Traveling to foreign countries.

Let us now create a goal or target out of this wish or desire.

Ask yourself following questions and answer them:

•       Where do you wish to go first?

•       When do you wish to go to the chosen foreign country?

•       Will you be able to complete all the preparatory work before that date?

•       Which cities in that country you want to visit?

•       How long you intend staying there?

•       Where do you plan to stay there: with your relatives/with your friends?

•       How much money will be needed for to and fro airfare and other expenses during travel? Which route and airlines will you choose?

•       How much money will be needed to stay there?

•       How much money will be needed to travel various cities you wish to see in the foreign country?

•       How will you take care of your medical expenses if any?

•       Do you have this kind of money? What are your sources of money?

•       Do you have a passport? If no, how much time it will take to get a new passport? Have you got all necessary documents?

•       Do you have the required Visa to go to the foreign country? Do you have all the documents to get the Visa?

•       Will you make your travel plans yourself or will you outsource it to an agency? What extra money you will need to hire the agency?

This may not be an exhaustive or comprehensive list. But you get a line of thinking and acting from this indicative list of questions.

You need to answer each one of them very specifically with facts and figures as correctly as possible. Then you will need to plan out the actions to be taken in order to complete the necessary tasks. The plan will have to be drawn on a time line.

Then you will have to get down to doing all those actions as per the timetable or schedule. And soon you will see that you are progressing towards achieving your goal day after day. And a day will arrive when you will have your passport and Visa with you, you will possess the required money (foreign currency) and you will be proceeding towards the airport to board your flight. Hey! You have achieved part of your above-mentioned goal. You will achieve rest of it after reaching the foreign country.

What did you really do? You really converted your wish or desire into a concrete goal or target by defining it as per the SMART criteria described in an earlier paragraph. In defining your goal in this new manner, you were SMART- your goal was now specific (S), measurable (M), agreed/achievable (A), realistic (R) and timed (T). 

(It will be a good idea to read all the other posts on Goal Setting on this blog).

Related Book

"Essentials of Goal Setting": You may like to order online your copies of the book (eBook as well as printed book) from Amazon.

Books Authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar and Dr Kalpana Bhatawdekar (eBooks and printed books available online from  Amazon)

Management, Business, Self-help & Personality Development Books

1. HSoftware (Human Software) (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)

2. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)

3. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

4. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers (Volume 2)

5. Classic Team Building Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

6. 101 Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

7. Stress? No Way!! (Handbook on Stress Management)

8. HSoftware (Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Effectiveness Model)

9. Competency Management (Competency Matrix and Competencies)

10. Soft Skills You Can’t Do Without (Goal Setting, Time Management, Assertiveness and Anger Management)

11. Essentials of Work Study (Method Study and Work Measurement)

12. Essentials of Time Management (Taking Control of Your Life)

13. Essentials of 5S Housekeeping

14. Essentials of Quality Circles

15. Essentials of Goal Setting

16. Essentials of Anger Management

17. Essentials of Assertive Behavior

18. Essentials of Performance Management & Performance Appraisal

19. Health Essentials (Health Is Wealth)

20. The Romance of Intimacy (How to Enhance Intimacy in a Relationship?)

Novels, Stories, Biographies and Travelogues

21. The Peace Crusaders (Novel: how the peace crusaders established permanent peace on a war strewn planet?)

22. Love Knows No Bounds (Novel: a refreshingly different love story. Also available with the title “Good People”)

23. Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories

24. Stories Children Will Love (Volume 1: Bhanu-Shanu-Kaju-Biju and Dholu Ram Gadbad Singh)

25. My Father (Biography)

26. Travelogue: Scandinavia, Russia

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam

Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management universe.blogspot.com/)

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Goal Setting: Domains

Domains of Goal Setting

Context

Goal setting or target setting can be done in:

•    Personal,

•    Family

•    Organizational and

•    Social context

Some examples of domains of organizational goals and personal goals are given below.

Domains of Organizational Goals: Examples

•    Growth targets

•    Revenue/profit improvement targets

•    Sales targets

•    Enhancement of customer base targets

•    New product development/introduction targets

•    Customer relationship/service improvement targets

•    Quality improvement targets

•    Cost reduction targets

•    Lead time/cycle time reduction targets

Domains of Personal Goals: Examples

•    Educational goals

•    Competence building goals

•    Personal grooming goals

•    Assertiveness and confidence building goals

•    Professional achievement/career goals

•    Marriage related goals

•    Children related goals

•    Family related goals

•    Financial and materialistic achievement goals

•    Health related goals

•    Entertainment/relaxation related goals

(It will be a good idea to read all the other posts on Goal Setting on this blog).

Related Book

"Essentials of Goal Setting": You may like to order online your copies of the book from Amazon.

Books Authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar and Dr Kalpana Bhatawdekar (eBooks and printed books available online from  Amazon)

Management, Business, Self-help & Personality Development Books

1. HSoftware (Human Software) (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)

2. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)

3. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

4. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers (Volume 2)

5. Classic Team Building Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

6. 101 Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

7. Stress? No Way!! (Handbook on Stress Management)

8. HSoftware (Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Effectiveness Model)

9. Competency Management (Competency Matrix and Competencies)

10. Soft Skills You Can’t Do Without (Goal Setting, Time Management, Assertiveness and Anger Management)

11. Essentials of Work Study (Method Study and Work Measurement)

12. Essentials of Time Management (Taking Control of Your Life)

13. Essentials of 5S Housekeeping

14. Essentials of Quality Circles

15. Essentials of Goal Setting

16. Essentials of Anger Management

17. Essentials of Assertive Behavior

18. Essentials of Performance Management & Performance Appraisal

19. Health Essentials (Health Is Wealth)

20. The Romance of Intimacy (How to Enhance Intimacy in a Relationship?)

Novels, Stories, Biographies and Travelogues

21. The Peace Crusaders (Novel: how the peace crusaders established permanent peace on a war strewn planet?)

22. Love Knows No Bounds (Novel: a refreshingly different love story. Also available with the title “Good People”)

23. Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories

24. Stories Children Will Love (Volume 1: Bhanu-Shanu-Kaju-Biju and Dholu Ram Gadbad Singh)

25. My Father (Biography)

26. Travelogue: Scandinavia, Russia

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam

Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management universe.blogspot.com/)

Goal Setting: Process

(It will be a good idea to read all the other posts on Goal Setting on this blog).

What is Goal?

The dictionary meaning of goal is: aim, purpose, target, objective, achievement or end result.

Goal is a desired result one contemplates or envisions and then commits or promises to achieve. One has then to plan for it, muster the necessary efforts and resources and direct them towards achieving the goal within a predefined time frame.

That’s why just imagining about a goal is not equal to setting a goal. That can be called only daydreaming. But with goal setting or target setting you are in fact getting ready to get in action to take steps to actually achieve the goal. That way you are acting to convert your dreams into reality. You have to make things happen to achieve a goal.

What’s Goal Setting?

Goal setting is also called “target setting”. Setting up or deciding upon the goals or outcomes in more definable terms that you wish to achieve at the end of a specific period is termed as goal setting.   

Therefore, the goals you set or decide will be expressed as: more tangible than intangible, more quantitative than qualitative, more objective than subjective, more specific than vague, more measurable than non-measurable, more time bound than without deadlines etc.

The goal setting is done for setting out your various goals from time to time on matters related to many spheres of your life as per the context.

Edwin A Locke developed goal-setting theory in 1960s. His first article on goal setting theory was “Toward a theory of task motivation and incentives”. He published it in 1968. This article triggered the ongoing thought process on goal setting. It indicated that a positive relationship exists between clearly identified/defined goals and performance.

Process of Goal Setting

When setting goals you should follow this sequence:

1.    See it: Visualize your personal, professional, family and social aspirations. What are your dreams for each one these domains of your life? Dreaming is not bad provided you are also thinking in terms of giving your dreams some concrete shape. When you start thinking of converting your dreams into reality, you start visualizing them in more details. That’s where your goal setting exercise starts. You start seeing the physical shapes/pictures and numbers and time lines. When how much of your dream will be turned into its physical shape and how? You are now setting goals mentally.

2.   Say it: Holding your aspirations and goals only in your mind does not help. You must verbalize them. Start talking about it to yourself and/or with the relevant persons. It gives clarity to your thoughts. It provides a sounding board. Try to elicit the response and feedback. You are likely to improve upon your ideas and goals. Few rounds of reflecting on them take you to the next step i.e. writing them down.

3.    Write it down: Now take out paper and pencil and jot down your ideas (the dream, the vision, the mission) and related details of converting them into concrete objectives (what you propose to do to fulfill your dream, what actions are required to achieve what kind of quantifiable results by when?). Writing down is very essential part of the goal setting process. It facilitates to fill in the gaps found in your thinking and speaking, it brings in specificity, removes conflicts in various related issues and then it becomes a permanent reference material and a basis for review.

4.   Do it: What you did so far in the first three steps is only the planning part of the entire process. Unless you start executing your action plan, you haven’t even taken the first step in real sense to meet your aspirations. You have to take actions for implementing your plan. The following equations seem to be true:

Great plan + Zero implementation = No effectiveness, No results, No success

Some plan + Some implementation = Some effectiveness, Some results, Some success

Great plan + Great implementation = Great effectiveness, Great results, Great success

You can see here that the implementation or execution is the key factor for being effective and successful.

Goals Should Be SMART

Goals you set should be:

1.    Specific (S): Your goal should not be vague, casual or general. It should be specific. Here are a few examples of what it means. Instead of setting a goal that I wish to reduce my weight, you should say I want to reduce my weight by 10 kilograms. Instead of setting a goal that says owning a three-bedroom house is my goal, you must paraphrase it to say owning a three-bedroom house in a decent locality in Irvine is my goal. Instead of stating that I want to improve my formal educational qualifications, you must clearly specify the course you wish to complete like MBA (Marketing) or MS (Computer Science) or some other from a particular university. In fact your goal statement should be able to answer the questions like what, how much, why, who, where, how, when etc.

2.   Measurable (M): You must give concrete measurable dimensions to your goal. If you are not in a position to measure your goal it becomes a very vague affair. In order to measure your goal or state it in quantifiable and verifiable terms you must also select a suitable criterion or unit of measurement. In an earlier example you can specify the area of your three-bedroom house in square feet. You can specify that I wish to own a house admeasuring 3500 square feet. Instead of saying that you will pass your MBA course with flying colors you must aim at achieving a specific percentage of marks or GPA score or rank in the university.

 

3.   Agreed (A)/Achievable or Attainable (A): You must make sure that you can achieve the goal. For example a person who has been very weak in math and science over the years will find taking up the engineering degree courses non-achievable. In earlier example of weight reduction if you set a goal of losing all the 10 kilograms weight in two weeks it is not attainable. Perhaps what is attainable is losing one kilogram a week or every two weeks. The goal that is achievable should also have your full commitment or agreement. Make sure that you really are committed to achieve the chosen goal and do not have a lackadaisical or lukewarm attitude. It will be a good idea to promise not only to yourself but to some other relevant person (say your spouse in case of a personal or family goal or to your boss or colleague in case of a professional goal) that you have chosen a particular goal and you promise to fulfill it. It puts a positive moral pressure on you.

4.   Realistic/Relevant (R): You should set realistic goals. For example going on a world tour at an early age in life is quite a far-fetched goal for a person with moderate earnings. Increasing the income ten folds in a single year also seems somewhat unrealistic goal for most people. Also the goal should be relevant- it should not be outright non-value adding or it should not be totally irrelevant to your top-level life goals. For example if your important life goal is to maintain good health throughout your life, your some other goal should not be to win a competition of eating hamburgers or having a great night life once every week.

5.  Timed/Timely/Time-bound/Time Sensitive (T): You must set a time frame to achieve your chosen goal. Without specifying the time by which you plan to achieve your goal, your goal remains only a hollow dream or wishful thinking. Fixing up the deadlines brings in urgency and importance. You become more sincere and serious. You mean business then. Also knowing over what period you need to achieve a goal helps you to track down and measure your progress of moving towards the goal at any point in time. In earlier example where you set the goal of reducing your weight by 10 kilograms, you must specify the date by which you will achieve it.

The acronym “SMART” first appeared in November 1981 issue of ‘Management Review’. It was referred to by its creator George T Doran in his article, “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives”.

Related Book

"Essentials of Goal Setting": You may like to order online your copies of the book (eBook as well as printed book) from Amazon.

Books Authored by Shyam Bhatawdekar and Dr Kalpana Bhatawdekar (eBooks and printed books available online from  Amazon)

Management, Business, Self-help & Personality Development Books

1. HSoftware (Human Software) (The Only Key to Higher Effectiveness)

2. Sensitive Stories of Corporate World (Management Case Studies)

3. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

4. Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers (Volume 2)

5. Classic Team Building Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

6. 101 Classic Management Games, Exercises, Energizers and Icebreakers

7. Stress? No Way!! (Handbook on Stress Management)

8. HSoftware (Shyam Bhatawdekar’s Effectiveness Model)

9. Competency Management (Competency Matrix and Competencies)

10. Soft Skills You Can’t Do Without (Goal Setting, Time Management, Assertiveness and Anger Management)

11. Essentials of Work Study (Method Study and Work Measurement)

12. Essentials of Time Management (Taking Control of Your Life)

13. Essentials of 5S Housekeeping

14. Essentials of Quality Circles

15. Essentials of Goal Setting

16. Essentials of Anger Management

17. Essentials of Assertive Behavior

18. Essentials of Performance Management & Performance Appraisal

19. Health Essentials (Health Is Wealth)

20. The Romance of Intimacy (How to Enhance Intimacy in a Relationship?)

Novels, Stories, Biographies and Travelogues

21. The Peace Crusaders (Novel: how the peace crusaders established permanent peace on a war strewn planet?)

22. Love Knows No Bounds (Novel: a refreshingly different love story. Also available with the title “Good People”)

23. Funny (and Not So Funny) Short Stories

24. Stories Children Will Love (Volume 1: Bhanu-Shanu-Kaju-Biju and Dholu Ram Gadbad Singh)

25. My Father (Biography)

26. Travelogue: Scandinavia, Russia

For everything you wanted to know on building leadership and management, refer Shyam Bhatawdekar’s website: http://shyam.bhatawdekar.com

(Refer our High Quality Management Encyclopedia “Management Universe” at: http://management-universe.blogspot.com/)