Smart Goal Making

It's easy to look at a musical instrument and say "I'm going to learn to play this, that's my goal!" But once you say this you're playing it daily for a few days, maybe a week or two, and then you feel overwhelmed, and slowly the excitement of learning wears away, and the instrument just sits there. A large part of the overwhelming feeling comes from the lack of a good goal, a smart goal. Smart goal planning is key to success, and, as it happens, there's a very easy acronym to help make good and accomplishable goals. S.M.A.R.T. Goals. SMART is the acronym used to break down the logistics of goal planning, it stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. I will be breaking down each of these during this post.  

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Specific

Measurable

Attainable 

Relevant

Time-Bound

Specific 

This seems like such an easy thing to do but it's a crucial part of goal planning and all the other letters fall in after this one. For example with learning an instrument be specific with what you want to accomplish, is there a certain song you want to be able to play or maybe a skill you want to master. Be specific with what you want the goal to accomplish.

Measurable 

It's important to set your goals in a way that you can measure your progress and track how far you are coming. An important part of tracking progress is being able to see how far you have come. This helps you stay motivated to accomplish your goals.

Attainable 

Don't set goals that are too far out of reach for where you are at. Setting goals that are too far out of reach can make you feel overwhelmed resulting in a lack of motivation. Set goals that you know you can obtain, goals that challenge you, but are still something that you can accomplish.

Relevant

Setting goals that are relevant to your big picture goals are important. This seems like something that is almost a no brainer but it is still important to understand. Relevance in goal setting makes the goal worth following and completing. Set goals that are relevant to you, your life. Don't set goals for others or their opinions of you. 

Time-Bound

This is arguably the most important part of setting a goal, give yourself a deadline, or several deadlines. Give yourself mile marks for where you want to be by certain dates or times. Without deadlines, goals don't get accomplished. They get forgotten and ignored, lost in the daily routines of life. 

These elements make a great goal that can take you so far and help you accomplish so much. I set all my goals based on these elements and I have found myself so much more successful than ever simply because of how I am setting my goals. I highly recommend that anyone interested in setting lasting and fulfilling goals use these elements as a way to set great goals.

Three Levels of Motivation/ Desire

Before I dive into how I set my goals, I want to talk about the 3 types of motivation/ desires that have been analyzed by psychologists and behavioral scientists. Every goal you make or action you perform can fall into one of these 3 categories. The first type has a few different names so for the sake of sanity, I will be referring to this as Instinctual Motivation/Desire, these are the desires and motivations that come as part of human nature. The desire to eat, drink, and care for your family. The second type is Extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation/ desire is driven off a reward system such as going to work to get money or running in a race to get a medal. These are the desires of social acceptance or praise. The final is Intrinsic motivation/ desire, which is the deepest type of desire and motivation there is. These are the motivations and desires that are driven by morals, values, and ethics. Intrinsic desires and motivations come from internal acceptance and purpose. Now that I have scratched the surface of these 3 categories, I would like to explore each type deeper to understand their purpose and how we can use them to set better goals. 

Instinctual Motivation is driven from survival, family loyalties, and overall human instinct. When nighttime rolls around we go to sleep because it has been ingrained in our core behavior to fall asleep when it gets dark at the end of the day. When our stomach growls we get up to go get food because of instinct. Instinct is how humans survive and listening to that instinct keeps us safe and moving forward to continue to survive. But oftentimes we feel tired of surviving and we want to truly live, which leads us into the next 2 types of motivations. 

Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation take us from humans doing what we need to do to survive and to live life more fully. Extrinsic desires are what we do for the reward and for other's views on your status. These types of desires are oftentimes superficial and the happiness we receive from them afterward is shortlived. These are the achievements that we brag about on social media that friends often reply with a simple "good job" and we feel really good until we need to move on to the next spur of happiness to get praise for. Let me be clear, extrinsic desires and motives are not bad, they just don't last past a few days or even weeks of happiness. I have done several virtual runs, and I will continue to do them as I know they are good for me, but my main desire for doing these runs is to get the medal or T-shirt that comes with registering for the run and entering a finish time. Extrinsic desires are different for everyone and, again, they are not bad and do have a purpose in our lives, to get us to try new things. 

The third and final type of desire is intrinsic. This is sort of a "top tier" motivation and is the goal in almost everything we do. Intrinsic desires are what we find purpose and true, lasting joy within. Intrinsic desires are often moved and decided upon by our core values and the moral code that we live by. Everything we do can be done intrinsically with the right mindset, the mindset of purpose. This is often what pushes us outside of our comfort zone to really get us to what our souls desire, to love and accept ourselves, and to have a purpose in life.

Something I like to keep in mind while I am setting my goals is which level my desired outcome of the goal is at. I have noticed for myself is my goals are more successful and easier to accomplish when they are more geared toward that "top tier" of Intrinsic desire or motivation. I've noticed that my desire to accomplish a goal dwindles after a few days when it's more superficial and geared toward gaining that praise or recognition from an outside source or a specific person. For example, I started my college journey majoring in Astronomy and Astrophysics because I love to learn about space but also in large part because I liked how it felt when I told friends from high school and people I would meet that I was studying to become an Astrophysicist, I felt cool. But, I was miserable the first year and half of college and took Calculus 1 over the time span of three semesters instead of one. I hated the math, I felt cool solving problems but I didn't know what I was doing half the time. I knew that continuing on this path I would have to still take Calculus 2 and 3 before getting into the cool Physics and Astronomy classes. I eventually sought a different degree, one with less math and settled on my current degree course of Spaceflight Operations, and I love it so much. I still get to learn about space which I love, while also studying the laws of spaceflight, the types of rockets and space suits used today, how the body responds in 0-gravity and amazing events in spaceflight history. 

My point in that little story is to show that while I enjoyed the responses I received from people hearing "Astrophysics", I wasn't truly happy, I was the opposite actually, stressed and suffering with myself. Now I sit in classes every day having a near out of body experience watching myself take notes thinking to myself, "I am actually here, I'm doing the thing, I'm going after my dreams". It is an amazing feeling and that self awe, joy, and feeling of purpose is something I couldn't buy. Find out what truly brings you joy and motivation and go after it. This theory of these desires is something I learned in high school in my Social Leadership class and I am thankful to my mentor and teacher every day for teaching me this as a skill that I can use for the rest of my life. I hope that the little information I have provided as well as one of my experiences can provide some help to you as you begin to set your goals. 

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The Road to Awesome

I'll be the first to admit that during this whole Coronavirus, national lockdown, and fear pandemic mess, I have not done much outside of playing Minecraft, snacking, watching and making Tiktoks, mope about how I miss living my best life, and binging cartoons and TV Shows that I have seen 100 times. Each night before I go to bed, I tell myself "Tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow is the day I'm going to get my life back and I'll wake up early, workout, stop drinking soda, not spend so much time on social media, blah blah blah", just to wake up the next morning at almost 2:30 in the afternoon, watching TV, snack, drink soda, play video games and then go to sleep at night with that same mentality of "Tomorrow is the day I get my life back". It's quite a vicious cycle and I am really tired of it kicking my butt. 

While doing scripture study a few nights ago, trying to get caught up on my "Come Follow Me", I started thinking about all the other books and novels I desperately want to read, the languages I want to learn, the workouts I want to do, the diet I want to start, and all the other goals I have for the summer months. I felt overwhelmed by all the things I want to do. I realized that no one else is forcing these activities on me, I want to do them, but I am simply lacking personal motivation and the intrinsic desire to accomplish them. 

The questions then become "How do I gain that motivation and desire?" and " What do I need to do to stay motivated to work on these goals?" That's what this series is going to be about. I want to share my journey of how I am going to gain motivation, accomplish my goals, stay motivated, and how I plan to apply what I am discovering to every aspect of my life. I want to share what S.M.A.R.T. goals are and how to are used/ how they are more likely to get accomplished than "Regular Goals". For me personally, I have always done better when I have something or someone to report to at the end of whatever I am doing, It's one of the reasons I love checklists so much, I feel that the list I have made is holding me accountable to finish my tasks. I plan to use this blog as a sort of accountability system for myself. I don't claim to be an expert in goal making or keeping them, but I have had great mentors in high school that taught me about these SMART goals and I have had parents that have always encouraged me to push myself and try new things. That's why this is "The Road to Awesome", not "The Destination of Awesome". 

I plan to update this blog about once a week with reports of what I am doing, my progress, and my thoughts and feelings about the processes I am using. Feel free to follow along and make any adjustments to better fit your needs and your goals. Send me some advice and tips too if you have any. 

I am so excited to start this journey and share it with you and I hope to come out of this quarantine, summer break, and this slum that I feel I have been in lately, stronger and more focused on my goals and expectations that I have for myself. I hope to get to know myself better and I am ready for all the potholes, beautiful scenes, construction zones, hills, and detours that The Road to Awesome is full of and I can't wait to see the person I become.