Pushing Forward Too Fast? The Key To Confident Goal Setting At Year’s End

People typically set goals for shorter time frames—one, two, or three years—believing this will help them achieve their goals more quickly. But this kind of short-term thinking typically results in pushing forward in a quick, usually rushed way that often involves investments that produce minimal returns. 

It also leads to anxiety and stress as you feel you have so much to do and not enough time in which to do it. But the truth is, you do have the time; it’s just that your deadlines are too short and your time frame too narrow. 

I like to say there’s no such thing as an unrealistic goal, just an unrealistic deadline.

By thinking in more extended time frames, entrepreneurs tend to set more realistic goals that keep them motivated and inspired over time, resulting in greater achievements overall. Here, I will explain how you can shift your thinking about goal setting to help you set smart and strategic goals rather than rushed ones for the years ahead. 

The key to confident goal setting: The 25-Year Framework

In Strategic Coach, the time frame we use for goal setting is 25 years. This time frame, I’ve learned, is the key to confident goal setting and consistent progress. It’s also much less stressful and anxiety-inducing.

Expanding your goal-setting framework to 25 years transforms the way you think about your path forward: 

• It acts as a filter to weed out ideas, activities, and enterprises that won’t go the distance.
• It tells your brain what to pay attention to and what to ignore. 
• It forces you to simplify your ideas and strip out the complications. Simple ideas last, and the best ideas are the ones that will transcend time.
• It supports a pace that is enjoyable and motivating for you and your team.
• It attracts growth-focused team members who are in it for the long haul.
• It encourages you to take advantage of new technologies with a lasting impact. 
• It protects you from everything that doesn’t continually grow over 25 years.
• It gives you greater confidence in your ideas in the present.
• It helps you make better choices about your relationships, products and services, growing networks of team members, and every aspect of your personal development and expansion outside of work. 

The “6 C’s” rewards of goal setting with The 25-Year Framework.

The rewards that result from having a 25-Year Framework can be expressed as the 6 C’s: Capability, Creativity, Credibility, Connections, Confidence, and Cash. As big as this rewarding 25-year future vision is, you’ll find it gets surprisingly easier to achieve to the degree that you productively enjoy each of the 9,131 days that make up the 100 quarters of your next 25 years.

Capability: Your personal and organizational ability to envision bigger results and achieve them quickly with little time and effort on your part keeps growing and extends into exciting new areas. 

Creativity: Increasingly, you combine your growing capabilities with those of others to create entirely new opportunities for greater numbers of individuals. 

Credibility: Your reputation for creating value in the world continues to expand through networks of other talented, successful, and ambitious multipliers. 

Connections: More and more, you feel connected to situations around the globe where the most significant growth and progress are taking place. 

Confidence: You find that as you progress, quarter by quarter, through your intentionally created 25-Year Framework, an increasing number of global factors improve your daily confidence. 

Cash: And, of course, there is more money—far more than you could have ever imagined. But all of it, no matter how large the amount, will always have intentional uses and purposes that expand your own future and the futures of everyone who encounters you during these 100 quarters. 

As 2024 comes to a close, I encourage you to give yourself room to grow by expanding your time frame.

Ask yourself: “Since I’m focused and committed for 25 years, what ideas, projects, relationships, and activities in my present-day life are going to grow and improve each and every quarter over these next 25 years?”