SETTING GOALS FOR SUCCESS
Have you ever thought about what you want to be
doing in five years’ time?
Do you know what you want to have achieved by the
end of today?
Do you ever feel like you’re sleepwalking through life
with no real idea of what you want?
What is Goal Setting
 Goal setting is a powerful motivator, the value
of which has been recognized in an abundance
of clinical and real-world settings for over 35
years.
 If you want to succeed, you need to set goals.
Without goals, you lack focus and direction.
Goal setting not only allows you to take control
of your life’s direction; it also provides you a
benchmark for determining whether you are
actually succeeding.
5 GOLDEN RULES
1. Set goals that motivate you.
 When you set goals for yourself, it is
important that they motivate you
 If you have little interest in the outcome, or
they are irrelevant, then the chances of you
putting in the work to make them happen are
slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.
 Set goals that relate to the high priorities in
your life.
 Goal achievement requires commitment, so
to maximize the likelihood of success, you
need to feel a sense of urgency and have an
“I must do this” attitude. When you don’t
have this, you risk putting off what you need
to do to make the goal a reality. This in turn
leaves you feeling disappointed and
frustrated with yourself
Tip: To make sure that your goal is motivating,
write down why it’s valuable and important to
you.
2. Set SMART goals.
 The simple fact is that for goals to be
powerful, they should be designed to be
SMART. There are many variations of what
SMART stands for, but the essence is this
goals should be:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Attainable
 Relevant
 Time Bound
Set Specific Goals
Your goal must be clear and well defined. Vague or
generalized goals are unhelpful because they don’t
provide sufficient direction.
Set Measurable Goals
Include precise amounts, dates, and so on in your goals
so you can measure your degree of success. If your goal
is simply defined as “To reduce expenses” how will you
know when you have been successful?
Set Attainable Goals
Make sure that it’s possible to achieve the goals you set.
If you set a goal that you have no hope of achieving, you
will only demoralize yourself and erode your
confidence.
However, resist the urge to set goals that are too easy.
Accomplishing a future goal that you didn’t have to
work hard for can be anticlimactic at best, and can also
make you fear setting goals that carry a risk of non-
achievement. By setting realistic yet challenging goals,
you hit the balance you need. These are the types of
goals that require you to “raise the bar” and they bring
the greatest personal satisfaction.
Set Relevant Goals
Goals should be relevant to the direction you want your
life and career to take. By keeping goals aligned with
this, you’ll develop the focus you need to get ahead and
do what you want.
Set Time-Bound Goals
Your goals must have a deadline. This means that you
know when you can celebrate success. When you are
working on a deadline, your sense of urgency increases
and achievement will come that much quicker.
3. Set goals in writing.
  The physical act of writing down a goal makes it
real and tangible. You have no excuse for
forgetting about it.
Tip: Post your goals in visible places to remind yourself
every day of what it is you intend to do. Put them on
your walls, desk, computer monitor, bathroom mirror
or refrigerator as a constant reminder.
4. Make an Action Plan.
 This step is often missed in the process of goal
setting. You get so focused on the outcome that
you forget to plan all of the steps that are needed
along the way. By writing out the individual
steps, and then crossing each one off as you
complete it, you’ll realize that you are making
progress towards your ultimate goal.
5. Make an Action Plan.
 Remember, goal setting is an ongoing activity,
not just a means to an end. Build in reminders to
keep yourself on track, and make regular time-
slots available to review your goals. Make sure
the relevance, value, and necessity remain high.
BANDURA’S SELF-EFFICACY:
SHARING IS CARING
The term ‘self-efficacy” was first coined by
psychologist Albert Bandura (1977) a Canadian-
American psychologist and a professor at Stanford
University.
He originally proposed the concept, in his own words, as
a personal judgment of “how well one can execute
courses of action required to deal with prospective
situations” (1977).
BANDURA’S SELF-EFFICACY
Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief in his or her
capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce
specific performance attainments.
Self-efficacy reflects confidence in the ability to exert
control over one’s own motivation, behavior, and social
environment.
He offers four ways to do this which we will delve into
now:
4 WAYS TO BUILD SELF-EFFICACY
1. Mastery Experiences
 Is experiencing the results of self-efficacy first
hand
 The key to mastery is approaching life with
dedicated efforts and experimenting with
realistic but challenging goals easy success with
little effort can lead us to expect rapid results
which can in turn make us easily discouraged by
failure
 Experiencing failure is important so that we can
build resilience to it
2. Social Modeling
 This means choosing role-models that can
demonstrate their self-efficacy
 Observing those who employ this in their lives
and have reached their goals despite adversity
can provide great motivation
 Bandura notes that due to modern technology, it
is not necessary to draw role models from one’s
own social surroundings the internet and other
digital resources can provide windows into the
lives of many inspiring models
3. Social Persuasion
 This is about “finding the right mentor”
 Social persuasion is about having others.
Directly influence one’s self-efficacy by
providing opportunities for mastery
experiences in a safe and purposeful manner
4. States of Physiology
 Our emotions, moods and physical state can
influence our interpretation of self- efficacy
CAROL DWECK’S MINDSET
Dweck coined the terms fixed mindset and growth
mindset to describe the underlying beliefs people have
about learning and intelligence.
Some people believed their success is based on innate
ability; these are said to have a “fixed” theory of
intelligence (fixed mindset)
While others, who believe their success is based on hard
work are said to have a “growth” theory of intelligence
(growth mindset)

CAROL DWECK’S MINDSET
Fixed-mindset individuals dread failure because it is a
negative statement on their basic abilities.
Growth-mindset individuals don’t mind or fear failure as
much because they realize their performance can be
improve and learning comes from failure.
These two mindsets play an important role in
all aspects of a person’s life.
LOCKE AND LATHAM’S GOAL SETTING
THEORY
Dr. Edwin Locke and Dr. Gary Latham spent many
years researching the theory of goal setting, during
which time they identified five key principles that
support the creation of effective and motivating goals.
These are: Clarity, Challenge, Acceptance, Feedback
and Complexity.
LOCKE AND LATHAM'S GOAL SETTING
THEORY 1
1. Setting clear goals.
 When your goals are clear, you know what
you're trying to achieve. You can also measure
results accurately, and you know which
behaviors to reward.
 However, when a goal is vague - or when you
express it as a general instruction, it is not easy
to measure, and it is not motivating.
2. Setting Challenging Goals.
 People are often motivated by challenging goals,
however it is important not to set a goal that is
so challenging that cannot even be achieve.
3. Securing Team Commitment
 To be effective, your team must understand and
agree to the goals – team members are more
likely to “buy into” a goal if they have been
involved in setting it.
4. Gaining Feedback
 In addition to selecting the right goals, you
should also listen to feedback, so that you can
gauge how well you and your team are
progressing.
 Feedback gives you the opportunity to clarify
people’s expectations and adjust the difficulty of
their goals.
 Keep in mind that feedback doesn’t have to
come from other people. You can check how
well you’re doing by simply measuring your
own progress.
5. Considering Task Complexity
 Take special care to ensure that work doesn’t
become too overwhelming when goals
assignments are highly complex.
 People who work in complicated and demanding
roles can often push themselves too hard, if they
don’t take account of the complexity of the task.
KEY POINTS
By understanding goal-setting theory, you can apply
Locke and Latham’s principles to your goals. Their
research confirms the usefulness of SMART goal
setting, and their theory continues to influence the way
that we measure performance today.
To use this tool, set clear, challenging goals and commit
yourself to achieving them. Be sure to provide feedback
to others on their performance towards achieving their
goals, and reflect on your own progress as well. Also,
consider the complexity of the task, and break your goals
down into smaller chunks, where appropriate.