How many goals should I have at once?

One main goal at a time works best for most people, with two or three process goals underneath it. You can keep a list of future goals, but give your attention to one. When it's done or running on habit, move to the next.

What's the difference between an outcome goal and a process goal?

An outcome goal is the result you want, like a promotion or a race time. A process goal is the action that gets you there, like a weekly training session or a monthly conversation with your manager. You need both. The outcome sets the direction and the process is what you actually do each week.

What should I do if I miss a week?

Nothing dramatic. Use your weekly review to work out what got in the way, adjust the plan and do the next step. One missed week doesn't break a goal. Not noticing the missed week is what breaks it.

How to Set Goals You'll Actually Achieve

You've set the goal before. Get fitter. Go for the promotion. Spend more time with the kids. It felt right when you wrote it down. Then work got busy, a few weeks slipped, and the goal quietly turned into something you feel a bit guilty about.

That isn't a willpower problem. Most goals fail at the setting stage, long before the doing. They're too vague to act on, there are too many of them, or nothing connects the big idea to what you'll do on a wet Tuesday.

High performance coaches in sport spend more time on how a goal is built than on the goal itself. Here's a version of that you can use today, for work or for life.

Why most goals don't stick

Three things usually go wrong:

The goal is an outcome you don't control. "Get promoted" depends on your boss, the budget and timing. You can't act on it directly, so you don't.
There are too many. Five goals means each one gets a fifth of your attention, and the hardest one gets none.
There's no review. Without a regular check-in, a goal only gets attention when you remember it, which is usually when you're already behind.

The steps below fix each one.

Step 1: Pick one goal for the next 90 days

Write down everything you'd like to change. Then pick one. Not the most impressive one. The one that would make the biggest difference to everything else if it went well.

Ninety days is long enough to see real progress and short enough that you can't put it off until "later in the year". If picking one feels impossible, our guide on how to make a hard decision walks through narrowing a choice down.

Step 2: Write why it matters in one sentence

"I want to get fitter" is a goal. "I want to kick the footy with my son without being sore for two days" is a reason. Reasons are what keep you going when the goal gets boring.

Make it about who you want to be, as well as what you want to get. Coaches call this playing to your identity. "I'm someone who keeps promises to myself" survives a bad week better than "I want to lose five kilos".

Step 3: Turn the outcome into actions you control

Keep the outcome. It gives you direction. Then add two or three process goals underneath it: things that are fully in your hands.

For example:

Outcome: Be ready for a team leader role by the middle of next year.

Process:

Ask my manager this month what they'd need to see from me
Run the Monday team meeting once a fortnight from November
Read one book on leading people before Christmas

Athletes work this way. A swimmer can't control who else is in the final. They can control their starts, their turns and their training. Focus on the process and the outcome usually follows.

Step 4: Plan the first step and the first obstacle

Decide what you'll do this week, and when. Put it in your calendar like a meeting.

Then ask: what's most likely to get in the way? Write an "if, then" plan for it. "If I get stuck at work late on Wednesday, then I'll do the session on Thursday morning instead." Deciding in advance means you don't have to decide when you're tired, which is when goals usually get dropped.

Step 5: Review it every week

Pick ten minutes at the same time each week. Sunday night works for a lot of people. Ask three questions:

What did I do this week that moved it forward?
What got in the way?
What's the one thing I'll do next week?

Adjust the plan and keep the goal. If you miss a week, the review is where you notice and reset, instead of quietly giving up. After 90 days, decide whether to keep going, raise the bar or pick the next goal.

When progress feels slow

Somewhere around week four or five, most goals hit a flat patch. The early energy is gone and the results aren't visible yet. That's normal, and it's the point where a weekly review earns its keep. Our guide on staying motivated when progress is slow covers how to get through it.

Try it in Pocket Mentor

Pocket Mentor is built on a framework from high performance coaches in AFL and F1. When you're working out what goal to set, open a chat and talk it through. Your mentor asks the kind of questions in this guide, helps you get clear on why the goal matters and what you'll do first, and gives you a summary of where you landed so you can come back to it at your weekly review.

START WITH POCKET MENTOR.

How to set goals you'll actually achieve