“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor. By setting goals, you are taking a step towards your ultimate vision, and by adapting them as circumstances change, you ensure that you stay on track to achieve it.” – Brian Tracy
Setting goals is an essential part of personal and professional growth. Goals help us to focus our energy, prioritize our time, and create a roadmap to success. Additionally, achieving our goals isn’t always as straightforward of a process as we would like to assume. When we work towards our goals, we may encounter unexpected challenges, setbacks, or opportunities that cause us to reassess and adjust our process. This change can be difficult, especially if we’ve become attached to a particular idea or strategy. However, to achieve our ultimate vision, we must be willing to let go of what isn’t working and embrace new approaches and endeavors.
The key is that we must be willingly open to reassessing and adjusting our approach as needed while staying focused on our fundamental mission and vision. Let’s explore the power of reassessing and adjusting our approach to achieve our highest goals.
The Rationale
When setting goals, we may clearly know what we want to accomplish and how to achieve them. As we start to take action, we may find that our initial plan isn’t working as well as we had hoped. Life happens; we encounter unforeseen obstacles or discover our approach isn’t generating the anticipated results. In these moments, it’s important to reassess our goals and adjust our approach as often as needed.
Regularly assessing progress is an integral part of achieving personal goals and growth. By reflecting on what you have accomplished and then evaluating what you could have done differently, you can identify areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments.
Reassessing our goals allows us to step back and evaluate whether we’re still heading in the right direction. Are our goals still aligned with our values and priorities? Are we making progress toward our ultimate vision? If not, it may be time to adjust our approach. This could involve changing tactics, seeking new opportunities, or even revising our goal entirely.
The Benefit
One of the key benefits of successfully reassessing and adjusting the action steps to our goals is gaining the competencies of flexibility and adaptability. Gaining the ability to become flexible and adaptable creates several advantages of development. It helps us become resilient when faced with the unexpected. We are better equipped to bounce back and recover quickly, known as failure recovery. Improved failure recovery helps reduce stress and anxiety while increasing our overall well-being.
When we’re too rigid in our thinking, we can become attached to a particular approach or idea, even if it’s not serving us well. We are essentially closing ourselves off to new ideas and possibilities. We may have become attached because it’s family or comfortable. This is detrimental practice because it can evolve to not being open to feedback, more the probability of missed opportunities, and being set on the path of repeatable set-back. On the other hand, when we’re open to new possibilities and willing to embrace change, we can stay adept and responsive to the moment’s needs. It’s easier said than done; it can be tempting to remain complacent, be repetitive in our process, or maybe even give up on our plans. Learning the reassessment process and gaining the ability to become adaptable will become easier in time to move forward and continue making progress.
The Outcome
Stepping back and evaluating if we are still heading in the right direction allows us to obtain our goals faster and have a higher probability of achieving them. A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that individuals who regularly reassessed their goals were more likely to achieve them than those who did not. The study also found that individuals who were more flexible in their approach to goal pursuit were more likely to be successful. Another study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that employees who regularly reassessed their career goals were more likely to experience job satisfaction and less likely to experience burnout.
Regularly reassessing goals and being willing to adjust strategies as needed can lead to greater success, job satisfaction, and overall well-being. By staying open to new ideas and approaches and being willing to adapt as circumstances change, our organizations and we as individuals increase our chances of achieving goals and thriving in a rapidly changing world.
The Application
Here are a few tips on utilizing and applying the power of reassessing and adjusting our goals.
- Regularly review your goals and progress. Set aside time to reflect on your goals and assess whether you’re making progress towards them. Regularly can mean daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.
- Be open to feedback and new ideas. Seek out feedback from others and stay open to new possibilities and approaches. Specifically, finding an accountability partner or coach is a formal way to ensure you will receive feedback.
- Stay focused on your ultimate mission and vision. While it’s important to be adaptable, staying true to your ultimate mission, vision, and goals is also vital.
- Embrace change as an opportunity. Instead of fearing change or failure, see it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and try something new.
- Be patient and persistent. Achieving our goals is rarely a linear process. Stay patient and persistent, even when faced with setbacks or obstacles.
The Conclusion
Achieving our goals requires a combination of focused effort, flexibility, and adaptability. Regularly reassessing and adjusting our approach, we stay on track and progress toward our ultimate vision. Remember, it’s not about holding on to a particular idea or strategy; it is about staying focused on our ultimate mission and vision and being open to new possibilities.