Why Goal Setting Doesn’t Work For Everyone (My Take!)

Intro.

How many courses have you taken or experts that you’ve listened to, that all advise setting goals for yourself? Just about all guru’s state that having this expected goal out in front of you will allow you to zero in on that target.

While this may work for some people, I don’t believe it works for everyone. I’m going to give an account of why I believe this to be the case, my experience and what I believe is critical for long term success.

While I’m talking from an online business perspective, different needs or niches like fitness and weight loss are more likely to focus on goals. But let me explain my experience from a blogging perspective.

Goals Never Helped Me

From the time I decided that I was going to achieve success as an online affiliate marketer, I’ve been told to set goals that I could focus on. This means setting limits or targets that I was required to get to, in order to motivate myself.

Having taken 3 different courses, read multiple books and countless websites, nearly all would replicate the point of making goals. These goals were like ‘attracting 200 website visitors per day’ to my website. Maybe ‘writing a specific number of articles per month’.

I found several issues with this.

Firstly, what if I didn’t get the amount of website visitors that I expected? Then what. Do I give up, or re-evaluate my goals. Do I just set a new goal as if the first one was not genuine?

I’m not the only person that thinks this. Take Ray Williams from the Financial Post who writes:

In the early 2000s, for example, General Motors set a goal to capture 29% of the U.S. auto market. They even produced corporate pins for people to wear with No. 29 printed on them. Needless to say they never achieved that goal, and without a government bailout, may not have survived.

The other issue is that life is so fast paced these days (at least before Covid-19!). So, family life is still important, a traditional job was still important until I could eventually branch out on my own. So reaching the goals that I set was not always practically achievable within the set time limit.

For my situation, I found that other aspects were more important than setting goals, and I’ll outline how I reached success without the traditional goal setting.

A System Rather Than a Goal

Instead of grabbing hold of a figure or key indicator, and putting it out as a beacon to reach, I’ve been steadily using a system that works for my situation. It is basically known as ‘using my spare time’. Not really that inspiring is it? But it works.

After failing at goal setting and being depressed for not having reached my target, I then chose to follow MY system until targets that I wanted were triggered. So for the goal of reaching 200 website visitors per day, I had no set time limit. I just followed my system until I reached 200 visitors per day.

My system involved using an hour before sending my young kids to school, to work on writing my next article. It also involved writing on public transport when commuting to work, and home again. And then after dinner, spending 2 hours working on my website instead of watching TV.

Sure, I made changes in my life to accommodate my desire to achieve success, but it was a system that I followed instead of hard targets that may or may not be achieved.

I found that this was less stressful, because if I didn’t reach my goal by a specific time, I’d just keep going until I did reach it. There was no anxiety leading up to a time-frame that was probably too unrealistic.

To follow this system though, I needed something special, and I believe anyone can find this within themselves.

Commitment is Key

Two words come to mind for achieving success, regardless of whether you set goals or not. These are ‘Commitment’, and ‘Motivation’. If you’re committed enough, you’ll get to your end target regardless of whether you’ve set goals.

I struggled with this in the early days, but because I had some motivating factors that encouraged me to be committed, I was always going to get there. It didn’t happen in the first year or two of wanting to work online for myself, I failed several times.

I was then stuck back at square one working my traditional 9-5 job. This infuriated me, because I had set goals and couldn’t achieve them. The main reason was lack of commitment, and not being persistent enough.

I took a good look at myself and my situation. I was working for a company with some people I did get along well with, but with structural changes within the company, many new staff had been recruited and the feel was not like it used to be. A new dawn was coming and I didn’t like it.

This was the motivation I needed to start again and push through. I look back and wish I had persisted the first time around, but better late than never. With determination, commitment and a will to make things happen, anyone can achieve the success I’m now having.

I’ve reached some of the goals I would have set myself years ago, but not because I had that target in mind. It was the system I put in place for myself to succeed, which is not rocket science. Be committed, be motivated, get educated and most of all, just keep going until success is achieved. Here’s some tips on how to keep motivated so you can persist in building your online business.

Reward Yourself Step By Step

It doesn’t hurt to reward yourself with each small accomplishment. This may be a time limit or a set amount of work completed. For me as a blogger, I rewarded myself each time I published 50 posts. This is an achievement in my mind, so why not acknowledge it and start the next 50.

You may decide that you’ll reward yourself every 3 months that you’ve been aiming for your success. This is a good set limit that requires self acknowledgement, so be proud of your efforts.

Often, nobody else is going to pat you on the back for the effort you’re putting in. We can all do with some pumping up from time to time, and there’s nothing wrong with rewarding yourself with a nice bottle of something!

Final Thoughts

So just because you’ve heard it from the ‘experts’, doesn’t mean it works for all. Setting goals does work for some, and I have no doubt that for the people that insist goals are the way to go, they truly believe it. And good for them if it works.

However, not everyone is built the same. My view on why goal setting doesn’t work for everyone may resonate with you, and put your mind at ease that you don’t need to set goals if you can achieve success without it.