Visioning vs goal setting
Visioning creates a holistic picture of what success looks like to you at a specific point in the future. Goals can be made and pursued in a silo, not taking into account the impact that has on the rest of your life. Instead of goal-setting being about hitting a metric or a milestone with tunnel vision, Visioning enables you to hit multiple goals at once with a broader image of your future.
Goal setting
Goal setting is the process of identifying specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) objectives that you want to achieve. Setting goals is one way that companies lead their employees through a strategic plan; helping them to contribute to revenue growth. In our personal lives, we may have individual goals that are concrete, like buy a house or get a promotion; or more qualitative, like swearing less and being kinder to ourselves.
The SMART criteria for goal setting means they’re:
Specific: Your goal should be clear and specific, so you know exactly what you are working towards.
Measurable: Your goal should be measurable, so you can track your progress and determine when you have achieved it.
Achievable: Your goal should be realistic and achievable, given your current resources and constraints.
Relevant: Your goal should be relevant and aligned with your values, interests, and long-term goals.
Time-bound: Your goal should have a specific deadline or time frame, so you have a sense of urgency and can plan your efforts accordingly.
Effective goal setting involves breaking down your long-term goals into smaller, more manageable steps and setting milestones along the way to help you stay on track.
Does goal setting work?
Goals are supposed to help you focus your efforts and resources, and motivate you to take action and make progress towards your desired outcomes.
But in reality, goals can be weaponized, either by ourselves or our managers. They can demotivate us, as they serve as a daily reminder in how we’re not measuring up. They can be arbitrary, as they’re usually based on what our investors want our company to do, or what we read in a book recently, or saw on Instagram, or what our partner wants or parents want or any list of reasons as to why pursuing individual, quantity-based goals can backfire on us.
Are you sure those goals are even yours?
Ambitious goals that come from a place of “should”, can do the opposite of what we want them to do; serving as a reminder of our failures instead of an inspiring daily guide. If you think you “should” get that degree, or should move home, or should finally get married… Then you should take a step back for a minute and ask yourself:
Are these goals really mine? Is this what I really want?
The downfall of goals is that when you really get down to them, they’re often not what you truly want. After peeling back the layers, you might find you’re not ready to take on the responsibility of that promotion, or that you actually want a condo, not a house.
That’s why Visioning is so powerful
The process of Visioning forces you to understand what you truly want in relation to where you are now. A Vision is not a fantasy; it won’t promise you anything that is unrealistic or unachievable. But I’ve had Visionaries hit 10-year goals in the first year, just by launching themselves through the Visioning process when goal setting wasn’t working.