What do you think about getting down and getting small? People and events beyond your control push you around more when you set fewer goals each day. There is a sense of powerlessness in you. The only thing you are doing is reacting to the world around you rather than creating the reality you want. The activities of your day are much more under your control than you realize. Your larger objectives will become a reality as you use your conscious awareness of small objectives more often.
It has become widely accepted that setting large, specific, long-term goals for oneself is a powerful tool in the free enterprise system. A person with ambition is always thinking about career goals, yearly goals, and monthly performance goals.
These people, however, often ignore the power of setting small goals during the day, helping them feel as if they achieved a lot of small successes on the way. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience is a psychological masterpiece by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that distinguishes between outcome and process goals.
There is always a possibility of achieving “process” goals within your immediate reach. Having four significant phone calls before lunch could be an example of a process goal. Once you have made the four calls, you file the paper in your goal folder and go enjoy lunch, after which you fill in one box per call.
As a result of your hard work. Prior to a conversation with someone, for instance, you can set process goals. This is what I want to know, these are the questions I want to ask, and these are the requests I want to make. I want to pay my client one compliment before I leave. You are able to focus completely on your process goals. Setting process goals constantly gives you a sense of skillful self-motivation, and it gives you more control over your day.
The progress you are making toward your “outcome” goals can be checked at the end of the day, or at the start of the next day. Process goals can be adjusted to bring you closer to the outcomes you want, and they should always be in harmony with each other. Suppose a long, hard day has come to an end. Before you go home, you have a half hour. A person might think, “I guess I ought to do some paperwork or make a call before I go home” if they don’t set process goals. All of a sudden, someone comes by your desk to chat while you are looking at the pile of papers on your desk.
You engage in conversation because you do not have anything specific to do, and before you know it, the half-hour has passed. It still feels like you wasted time, even though you didn’t leave anything specific unfinished. Would it be possible to achieve a process goal within that half hour? My marketing material will be included in two good letters of introduction I’m going to send before I go home tonight.”
With only half an hour left, you have a process goal to accomplish. In response to the person coming by your desk, you tell him you’ll have to speak to him later because you have some things “that have to be out” by five.
The level of consciousness and energy of people who set small goals all day long is much higher. There’s an ongoing game they’re constantly coaching themselves through. As a result, they are happier people because they are able to create their own days instead of relying on factors outside of themselves.
Originally posted 2022-08-20 11:56:53.