A simple strategy to meet your goals more often
A simple strategy to meet your goals more often
The good, better, and best goal-setting method
Academics are often people who hold themselves to high standards. One of the ways to do this is to create big goals for ourselves. We believe that in order to meet our high standards, we must also achieve our lofty goals. At the same time, many of us struggle from day to day to meet those goals and begin to doubt that we are doing enough to achieve what we desire for ourselves.
There are two primary challenges here. Firstly, our numerous responsibilities often clash with our writing and research ambitions. Secondly, our lofty aspirations can lead to feelings of failure when we don't meet them consistently. This cycle can deter us from accomplishing our objectives, making us believe we need significant leaps in our research to make any progress at all.
To strike a balance between ambitious and achievable goals, one effective strategy is the "good, better, best" goal-setting approach. I’d like to thank Erin from the PNP Writing Circle community for introducing this idea to me and Devon for adding that she makes them SMART goals as well. I find it such a nice way to manage aspirations with achievability.
Here’s the basic idea:
Good Goals: These serve as foundational targets. By setting a specific, attainable goal, you create a safety net. For instance, if you allocate three hours for writing, aiming for 300 words might be a good goal. Even if unexpected challenges arise—be it writer's block, attending to a child's homework, addressing committee issues, or realizing you're not as prepared as you hoped—you still stand a reasonable chance of achieving this goal.
Better Goals: These are goals that allow you to go a little bit further if the circumstances are favorable and your writing is flowing that day. A better goal might be to write 700 words on that same project in the three hours you have allotted. You would most likely not have many interruptions, and no major writing barriers would arise if these conditions were met.
Best Goals: These are the most ambitious goals that you might be able to achieve if all conditions are met and your fingers can fly across the keys at an unusually fast rate. This is the day when everything clicks in your writing and you feel like you can write quickly and easily. You have zero interruptions while working towards this goal. You might set a goal of 1200 words in three hours.
Longer-term goals could also be set as good, better, and best. Maybe your good semester goal is to write two-thirds of a chapter draft; a better goal is to write a full draft; and the best goal is to draft and edit the entire chapter. Of course, we all want to be able to complete the best goal possible, but we also know from experience that things come up in writing, at work, and in our personal lives that may indicate that this goal is not the most realistic outcome.
The key psychological benefit of the good, better, and best goal-setting method for academics, in my opinion, is that it focuses on achievable goals while still allowing you to exercise your ambition and strive for more lofty goals at the same time. You can feel good about your progress most days and great on a few occasions when you push yourself and actually meet one of your more ambitious goals.
Are you the type of person who always strives for “best” and cannot wrap their mind around just being “good”? Here’s another post for you:
