Three percent (3%) of people set goals. Of that three percent, only eight percent (8%) of them actually do some form of goal getting so that they achieve their goals.
It’s one thing to want something. It’s another to systematically work out a way to get it.
Here’s a system to turn your goals from the things you want into the things you actually achieve.
Bonus: I put together a printable goal getting worksheet that you can download here for free. Just enter your name and email address below for the download link.
How Most People “Break Down” Goals
The popular advice given by pretty much everyone is to “break down your goals into smaller goals”.
And so people try this, and it usually looks like this:
- I want to lose 10 kg, so…
- I’ll lose 1 kg first, then 2 kg, then 3 kg and so on.
Or maybe:
- This project has 20 different parts to it.
- So I’ll do part 1, then part 2, then part 3 and so on.
What most people are doing is they are breaking down their larger goal into smaller units of measurement or smaller action steps.
This is not bad.
But I believe that we can do better.
Goal Getting: A Different Approach to Achieving Goals
Rather than simply breaking down our goals into smaller units or smaller action steps, we can take a different approach.
And we do this by turning our goals into systems.
Note: You still have to start with good goal setting.
This goal getting system has six parts.
1. Identify the area of life your goal sits in.
Every single goal will sit in one or more areas of your life:
- Wealth.
- Health.
- Social.
- Relationships.
- Learning/Growth.
- Play.
It may sit in more than one area.
If it’s a work goal, it’s related to your career and thus sits in the wealth area.
2. Ask why you want this goal.
This step acts as a bit of an ecology check and also helps you clarify the intention and purpose behind your goal.
It gives your subconscious mind reasons to motivate you, and also helps your intuition work out what to do, thus increasing your probability of achieving the goal.
3. Work out your factors of input.
Goal getting is a system, and the factors that contribute to the goal are the inputs.
Factors are essentially things that you have (resources) or that you can do (actions) to increase your chances of achieving the goal.
Some of these will be under your control and some will not.
You can even break down these factors into smaller factors and skew those towards achieving your goal as well.
4. Run the process of achieving the goal.
The process is the middle part of the goal getting system and it usually means giving something time or a number of tries.
5. Measure the output.
The degree of success that you have in achieving your goal is the output of the goal getting process.
6. Assess and iterate.
If you liked the output in step #5, then you don’t need to do anything else.
If you didn’t, then it’s time to take a step back and assess your goal getting system — then make adjustments, and run the system again.
Examples of Goal Getting Systems for Achieving Your Goals
Let’s look at a couple of content examples to see how goal getting can work.
Example 1: Weight loss
The traditional approach to weight loss is usually some variation of “I want to lose 5 kg” and then picking a diet and eating it until the goal is reached.
But then what?
Do you go back to your old eating habits? And what do you do next?
A goal getting systems approach breaks the weight loss goal down even more and turns it into a system that works forever.
Here’s how it looks step-by-step.
1. Area.
Weight loss in the health area of life.
2. Ask why.
This will be highly individual, but it could be:
- Look good in clothes / fit into clothes.
- Healthier bodyweight.
- Healthier fat percentage.
- Losing weight for a particular event (wedding, competition weigh-in etc).
These whys will tell you what factors you need to pay attention to in the next step.
3. Identify input factors.
There are a multitude of factors for weight loss. Here are some:
- Diet.
- Exercise.
- Energy levels. There’s no point losing weight if you’re too tired to do anything with the results.
- Mindset and motivation.
- Support network. It is incredibly helpful to have supportive friends and family who understand your change in diet and habits. It can also be helpful to have professionals like a trainer, doctor or nutritionist on-hand.
Instead of just looking at one factor (weight in kilograms), you can look at all the factors above and adjust them all together to achieve the goal faster.
This could mean combining a sustainable diet with adequate exercise levels and using energy levels and scale weight as a measurement.
It could also be doing some inner game work to work out what your weight loss journey will look like and how you will sustain it once you’ve reached your goal.
When you put all these factors together, you have the beginnings of a weight loss or weight maintenance system for the rest of your life.
4. Run the process.
Once you’ve worked out and set up the input factors, it’s time to run the process.
For weight loss and most health-related things what you really need is time and food/exercise consistency, and to let your body make the adjustments.
5. Measure the output.
After running your system you want to track and measure the output, in this case scale weight in kilograms.
6. Assess and iterate.
After running the system for enough time, you can track your results and then adjust.
Perhaps you need more exercise. Perhaps you need less food. Perhaps you need more sleep.
Whatever it is, you make adjustments to your input factors and then run the process again.
The great thing about this approach is that it also helps you establish a baseline for your results. What this means is that after you’ve achieved your particular weight loss goal, you know how to work out what to do next. You will know which factors to adjust to keep losing kilograms — or how to maintain your results.
Example 2: Finding someone to date
For a completely different example, say you want to find someone to date. And maybe a long-term relationship and marriage is on the table.
What do most people normally do here?
They:
- Have a super-detailed list of “ideal qualities in a partner” and try to find that in someone.
- They get introduced or somehow meet people and go on dates. Maybe once a month.
- Perhaps they hook up.
- Something the other person does doesn’t meet their detailed list, so they’re disappointed.
- They rinse and repeat this process month after month after month.
A goal getting systems approach would be different. Here’s what it could look like.
1. Area.
Dating and relationships sits in the relationships part of your life.
2. Ask why.
In the example above, the “goal” is a long-term relationship with perhaps more as an option down the line.
But because this is relationships, there will also be other reasons that vary from person-to-person:
- Companionship.
- Attachment (healthy or otherwise).
- Physical affection.
- Social status.
- Etc.
3. Identify input factors.
Nothing sounds less romantic than “identifying your input factors for dating” but here we go.
Some things that matter for this particular goal would be:
- Your level of attractiveness as perceived by others.
- Your mindset around relationships. This is your approach to things like intimacy, vulnerability, non-neediness, attachment styles etc.
- The dating market you find yourself in. i.e., who’s available around you.
- What you want in your future partner (list of qualities).
- Pure numbers. This is the number of people you meet, and the number of people you go on dates (and more) with.
- Your network, if you want to meet people through friends or people you already know.
It’s worth noting which of these factors are under your control and which are not.
These are under your control:
- Level of attractiveness. This is how you dress, how you present yourself, how physically fit you are.
- Mindset around relationships.
- List of qualities.
- Asking for introductions.
- The number of people you meet.
Some people may say “but I can’t change THAT”… well, you can. It may take time, but most of the input factors into dating are changeable and are under your control.1In a way, getting this goal is more of a journey into self-improvement.
The main factor that isn’t really under your control is other people’s reactions to you. No matter how much our inner teenager would like it to be so, we just can’t wish others into falling in love with us 😶.
4. Run the process.
Finding a person to have a relationship with is a process, not a single destination.
And you have to run the process… meaning you have to meet lots of people and go on a lot of dates.2And hey, that can actually be pretty fun!
A lot of this is just pure numbers and probabilities.
If someone goes on one date a month, they meet twelve people a year.
If another person goes on twelve dates a month, they meet one hundred and forty-four people a year.
Who do you think has the greater chance of meeting someone compatible with their list of qualities?
And more than that, who do you think will have a more realistic assessment of what is actually important on their list of qualities… and not?
5. Measure the output.
The output for this goal is straightforward: Did you find someone to date, or not?
6. Assess and iterate.
This final step is where having a goal getting system really pays off.
In a more traditional approach, if you’re disappointed with a date you really just try again.
But if you look at it systematically, you make an adjustment to your system (iterate), and then you try again.
This could mean adjusting how you dress. It could be adjusting the type of dates you go on. It could be adjusting where you meet new people. It could be adjusting your list of qualities.3It may not be politically correct, but if you get along better with people from a certain place, culture, with a certain type of job or anything else… then why NOT focus on just those people? You like what you like.
What To Do Next
Goal getting is a system for turning your systems into goals and actually achieving your goals:
Take a goal, and run it through the system. Iterate until you get it. And then enjoy having a system that can consistently produce results in that area of your life, forever!
To get started, download my free, printable goal getting worksheet here:
In case you missed it, you can read about how to set effective goals here, and how to discover your purpose here.
- In a way, getting this goal is more of a journey into self-improvement.
- And hey, that can actually be pretty fun!
- It may not be politically correct, but if you get along better with people from a certain place, culture, with a certain type of job or anything else… then why NOT focus on just those people? You like what you like.
Photos by Ashtyn Renee, Helena Lopes, Daniel Park, Danielle Cerullo.