Why Your Performance Isn’t Improving After You Set a New Goal
Goal setting is fun. Setting goals at the start of a new year, new season, or new anything is flat out energizing. Furthermore, having more energy is one of the key elements for improving performance.
In addition, over the last 35 years there have been more than 600 studies on goal setting. Out of all these studies more than 90% show that goal setting is an effective mental skill for improving performance.
However, if you are like most people, setting goals isn’t improving your performance right now. So, what’s up with that? If all things point to the fact that goal setting is effective for improving performance, then why isn’t your performance improving after you set goals?
Getting the Performance Benefits out of a Goal Setting Process
To get the performance benefits out of a goal setting process, you first must not take your goals for granted. Setting goals can become so habitual, it’s easy to overlook the fact that setting goals is just the start of a process, not the end. Moreover, when you set a goal without thinking about the process to pursue the goal you don’t have any performance indicators. Subsequently, when you don’t have performance indicators you don’t have an objective way of knowing if your goals are helping you improve your performance.
To avoid this predicament, take some time to think about your answer to these four questions:
- Do you have a specific place to manage your goals?
- Do you have a written plan with step-by-step details to make progress towards your goals using a progression?
- Does your plan take advantage of your strengths and personality type?
- Have you made progress on your plan within the last week?
If you answer no to any of these four questions, then you are not getting the performance benefits out of your goal setting process. Now is the time to get serious about improving your performance so you can achieve your goals.
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