How to Achieve Short-Term Goals

Not every goal in life takes months or years to achieve. In fact, some need to be completed within a short time frame—sometimes in just a few weeks, days, or even hours. These goals can be incredibly important, often serving as a stepping stone towards a larger objective. Short-term goals are typically simpler than long-term ones, but they can still present a significant challenge. Staying focused and acting at the right moment are crucial to successfully achieving short-term goals.

Ensure the goal is clear. With any goal, it’s essential that your objective is well-defined. The work you do to achieve short-term goals happens in a shorter time frame, so it’s crucial to avoid distractions that could take you away from your goal. Distractions lead to delays and reduce motivation.

• For example, imagine you are writing a book. To manage the process, you decide to break it down into short-term goals. You hope to achieve each goal in a month. You might set a short-term goal of 'start writing the book' for the first month. However, it’s not clear. A better goal could be 'write the first draft of Chapter 1 this month.' This makes it clearer exactly what you aim to accomplish.

Ensure the goal is realistic. When setting goals, it's important to ensure that you are actually capable of achieving them within a reasonable time frame. Failing to do so can lead to frustration and may cause you to abandon future goals.

• Our brains grow through success. Setting achievable goals and seeing them through to completion will motivate you to pursue the next goal. Setting a goal you can't achieve within the limited time will have the opposite effect.
• Returning to the book-writing example, you might not want to set the goal of finishing the first six chapters in one month. Unless the chapters are extremely short, you may find that you'll need to write more than you expect in that time. Not achieving this goal could demotivate you when it’s time to write a more manageable amount the next month.

Identify the steps. Nearly every goal can be broken down into smaller tasks. Recognizing these smaller steps can make the goal more achievable. It also helps you create a clear plan to accomplish the tasks needed to reach your goal.

• For example, let's say you have guests coming over and your house needs a lot of cleaning. You break the process down into smaller short-term goals: clean the bathroom, clean the kitchen, clean the living room, etc. However, you can also break these goals down further. For the kitchen, you may need to wash the dishes, wipe down the countertops, clean out the fridge, and mop the floor.

Estimate how long each step will take. Creating a schedule and setting deadlines for these tasks will give you motivation, accountability, and help you follow through.

• For instance, if you start with cleaning the bathroom, you might estimate that it will take 15 minutes to clean the bathtub, 10 minutes for the sink, 10 minutes to organize the medicine cabinet, and another 10 minutes to mop the floor. If you can allocate these times to a schedule, you'll be able to clean the bathroom in just one hour.

Outline the plan. Once you've identified the steps, writing them out in a clear, organized plan will make the process easier to follow.

• It may seem silly to write down the steps for a simple task like cleaning the house. In fact, you don’t have to do this. But writing it down helps clarify your goal and can create motivation.
• Writing out the steps also ensures you won’t forget anything important.

Set Priorities. Often, when working on short-term goals, we may have multiple objectives at once. It's essential to decide which goal is the most important so that you can tackle it first.

• If guests are coming over, you may need to clean the house. However, you might also need to buy a lot of groceries. You might even want to wash the car. It may be wise to plan out what needs to be done while your friends are at your house. You may need to continue tasks that you can’t do when your friends are around. Trying to do everything at once will not allow you to be as effective as when you focus on the most important task first, complete it, and then move on. In fact, trying to do everything simultaneously may mean you accomplish nothing.
• Prioritizing goals also helps you avoid wasting time once you finish a task. You will always know what to do next.

Take Action. Like any goal, short-term goals are only achieved by dedicating time and effort. When you begin, you'll develop the momentum that can carry you through to the finish.

• If your house is a total mess, it might be difficult to begin cleaning. However, look at your plan and try to tackle the first step as soon as possible. Once you've cleaned one room, the satisfaction you'll feel will drive you to continue.

Stay Focused. To achieve any goal, you need to work consistently. This is even more important with short-term goals. Since these goals don’t take much time to complete, it’s crucial to keep your eye on the reward and not get distracted.

• Track your progress. Always keep an eye on the clock (calendar) and the plan you’ve set to achieve your goal. The schedule you create can serve as a strong motivator to help you stay on track. No one likes the feeling of failure.
• Create a conducive environment for success. Try to eliminate anything in your environment that might prevent you from reaching your goal. Imagine you're cleaning the house, but you didn’t realize your dog is following you around, asking for attention all day. You might want to put it in its crate for the afternoon so you can focus on the task. If you don’t trust yourself to resist the temptation of playing your favorite video game, put the game controller in a drawer in another room and don’t take it out until you’ve completed your goal.

Be Flexible. Sometimes, you may find that the work toward your short-term goal isn't going as well as you hoped. Or, as you're working, you might come up with a better way to execute the plan you've laid out. In such cases, don't be too rigid in sticking to the plan for the sake of it.

• If the short-term goal isn't working as expected, or if it's taking longer than anticipated, don’t hesitate to adjust your plan. Having a plan is important, but occasionally you’ll need to change the order of steps, remove some, or add new ones. Sometimes, you may need to completely stop pursuing one short-term goal in favor of another.
• For example, when writing a book, you might have planned to draft the first chapter in a month. However, while writing that chapter, you may come up with a new idea for the book that you hadn’t thought of before. If it’s a good idea, it might be worth going back and adjusting the manuscript to incorporate it. This might delay your initial goal, but if it leads to a better book, be flexible and adapt the plan!

Reward Yourself for Success. Once you achieve a short-term goal, reward yourself. This is called “reinforcement.” It helps your brain link future goals with positive outcomes. It also makes it easier to motivate yourself to reach future goals.

• There are two types of reinforcement. Positive reinforcement involves adding something good to your life. For example, you might reward your success by going out for a cocktail or enjoying your favorite dessert. Negative reinforcement involves removing something undesirable from your life. For instance, if you don’t enjoy walking the dog, you might make an agreement with someone in your household to walk the dog for you the day you achieve your goal.
• Reinforcing good behaviors is much more effective than punishing bad ones. It helps increase your motivation to achieve more goals.