The Importance of Proper Goals: How To Avoid The Unclimbable Ladder

Picture this: It’s New Year’s Eve, the time reads 11:59 PM, and you’re only 10 seconds away from the slate being wiped clean.

“10!…9!…”

Up until this point, you’ve had yourself….a year. Whether good or bad, the details aren’t important right now. But what is important, is that you’re only seconds away from the New Year, which means you’re only seconds away from having to wrestle with a resolution again.

“5!…4!…”

What’s it going to be this time? Reading? Cooking? Or maybe we’ll try and tackle fitness again for the 3rd year in a row?

“2!…1!…”

And before you know it,

“Happy New Year!”

We’ve all been there before.

Now…what happens next? What happens is we step out into the world with the mindset to accomplish the goals we’ve set for ourselves, and for some of us, that goes really well. And I mean really well.

But for the rest of us? We might do okay the first couple of months, maybe the first couple of weeks, and for some possibly only the first couple of days (others might’ve never even started once the clock struck midnight).

So why is this? Why is there an everlasting game of tug-of-war occurring within ourselves in an effort to get “it” done? Where when one side wins, you experience self-improvement and feelings of self-fulfillment, but when the opposite side wins, you experience exactly that: the opposite.

It turns out I can tell you why:

Now you might be thinking to yourself: “Wait, huh? No way my goal is too big. My goal is only to ‘Lose Weight’, not ‘Stop World Hunger’. How could that possibly be too big?”

That’s precisely my point. The more vague your goal is, the broader it is. The way to correct this is to have SMARTer goals. Losing weight is a popular goal amongst many people so I’ll continue to use it in some examples, but if you’re reading this, and you’re serious about the goals you currently have set in place for yourself, be sure to adjust them keeping these tips in mind.

Specify exactly what the goal is. How much weight do you want to lose? 5 pounds? 50 pounds? 500 pounds? Be specific, and give yourself an endpoint so you have something to work towards. Once you’ve got that figured out, it’s time to think about how you’re going to lose the weight. Is it with the gym? Is it through running? Is it via home workouts? Whatever the cause will be, just make sure you give yourself one. Now ask yourself, how often? This can go on and on if you let it, and it should! Because the more specific, the better.

Measure your progress by making sure the goal is trackable. In this example, we should know it absolutely is. Did you say you would lose weight by running? Keep track of how far you run each and every workout. Did you say it was with the gym? No problem. Write down what workouts you do, how many reps, how many sets, and at what weight. This lets you look back at your progress to see how far you’ve come. Not only does this serve as an incredible source of motivation for yourself, but maybe you can also track what’s working and what isn’t? Create some stats for yourself, you’ll need it.

Attainable goals are what you should be striving to accomplish. A super-villain doesn’t plan to take over the world overnight. They first begin with a smaller, more reasonable goal to hit while keeping the end-goal in mind. This is because 9 times out of 10 we aren’t creating resolutions that will last us only a month. We aren’t running to our friends and family to share with them that we plan to learn a new language for only a season's duration. For some of you, this absolutely is the case with your goals, and that’s fine. But the key is still to create smaller goals you can hit while in pursuit of the one at the end.

Relevancy is extremely important when it comes to goal-setting. Think about what hitting this goal means to you and how it fits into your life. You can tailor this goal to your needs and create an extremely thorough strategy of how you plan to accomplish it, but you’ll still need the motivation and desire to get it done. This isn’t something that can be taught or told either — it must come from within. A lot of times just by reflecting and being introspective you can find all the motivation you need to help. Think about how important it is and what accomplishing this goal means to you.

Time yourself. Firstly, because you don’t have all day. Then most importantly, because creating a deadline for yourself instills a sense of urgency (especially if you attach consequences to it….a friendly bet maybe?). How many times did you have to hand in a paper at school which you waited until the last minute to do? If the answer was plenty, then you already know the feeling. If the answer was never, however, then recreate those conditions and give yourself a deadline for your goal. See how it affects your willingness to get it done.

That’s all there is to it. Simple right? But before I send you off back into the world and I have you try your hand at creating your own SMART goals, I need to highlight further the importance of setting attainable goals and being specific about them.

At the end of “A”, I said:

The key is to create smaller goals you can hit while in pursuit of the one at the end.

Let me show you why this is so crucial. I introduce to you:

The Unclimbable Ladder

If you were told to climb this ladder right now, could you do it? For many of us, the answer is probably not. For me, the answer is definitely not. However, technically, someone can climb this ladder. It wouldn’t be in the traditional way obviously, but someone with enough upper body and grip strength could climb it to the top by gripping the sides and pulling themselves up. Unfortunately, the majority of us don’t have the skills of a Ninja Warrior to be able to do it though.

Ladders are an excellent way to view and measure your goals, and this ladder is exactly how you should view a vague goal. If the top of this ladder represents the goal you’d like to set out to accomplish, can you accomplish your goal without knowing anything else about it? (such as specifics on how to go about doing it?) Sure. It’s clear to see that it’s not going to be easy, and your probability of failure is as high as ever, but yes, one could technically still reach their goal this way. The vast majority would fail though. Taking it a step further than that, an even greater majority wouldn’t even attempt it in the first place. Why?

You would be too scared.

Before continuing, for just a moment let me explain why this is a big deal. All of our brains have an amygdala that handles emotions and detects fear. It is responsible for activating our body's fight-or-flight defense mechanism when we’re scared. When we feel a strong emotional response such as fear or uncertainty, the amygdala responds by seeking comfort and trying to find something to help avoid this feeling (this causes procrastination to take place). Whenever we’re faced with completing a task that is considered difficult or unpleasant, we try to ignore it.

This is why at the beginning, I explained why we often fail at the goals we create for ourselves: they’re too big. The more vague your goal is, the broader it is. Setting big goals is exciting but also scary, and the larger the change that we want to make, the more scared we become. The result of this is procrastination, and we all know what that is by now. Once we start ignoring something, it’s easy to see how the ball could keep rolling (especially with no deadlines or consequences, which is why you should give yourself some).

The Semi-Unclimbable Ladder

Let me ask you again: if you were told to climb this ladder, could you do it? Some of you might still say no, but a lot more of you would say yes. There are also more ways now to climb this ladder to reach the top: a Ninja Warrior could climb it just at they did the first ladder, a tall person could possibly climb it traditionally, a person with not enough length could possibly jump up to grab the next rung (step, bar) and pull themselves up, etc. The point is that it's easier, although the chance of success is still not great.

In relation to setting goals, this is why it’s important to be specific about the steps it will take to reach your goal, as well as why they need to be attainable. It will make the climb less scary. Create extra steps for yourself in between you and your main goal to improve your chances of reaching it.

Say for example the man shown in the picture has a goal of opening up a restaurant and he plans to quit his job, only utilizing his experience working as a chef to help him along the way. In our example, he knows what his main goal is, what some of the things he’ll need to make it happen are, and he even has an understanding of what he wants his menu to look like. He could have enough steps to help him climb and accomplish his goal, but again it’s clear to see that it’s not going to be easy, and your probability of failure is still pretty high.

Another thing to keep in mind is, not all goals are created equal. With such a big ladder to climb in the hopes of opening up a restaurant, the man could very well decide to turn back after making his way halfway up the ladder. This would be due to a person's fear of falling (fear of failure). A lot of times people will get started on their goals and never finish them, but not because of lack of discipline or lack of motivation to do whatever needs to get done, sometimes it’s just fear.

“What happens if I fall (fail)? What would people say? What would my friends and family think? Would I be okay afterwards? Would I be willing to get up and try climbing again?”

Other times they lose belief.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore. This is too hard. I realize I’m not cut out for this. I made a mistake.”

So how can you give yourself the best possible chance to climb to the top and reach your goal?

The Climbable Ladder

Build yourself a climbable ladder. It’s not a question of can an able-bodied person climb this ladder. The answer is yes.

With this ladder, the man has given himself the best chance at accomplishing the goal he set out to accomplish, and the way he did it was as follows: He was specific about how he would open his restaurant by first determining what he would need to do and then he created small goals and small steps to do it (researched how to create an LLC, created a business plan, assessed his finances, developed a branding and marketing strategy, etc.). He measured his progress and kept track of everything getting done. He made sure all the additional small goals he created to help were attainable. He reminded himself daily what his purpose was and why he was doing everything in the first place. He followed strict deadlines and kept himself accountable.

Of course, the fear of falling (fear of failing) doesn’t just disappear because you’ve given yourself more steps to climb (some people are afraid of heights after all), but you at least eliminate some of the fear by knowing you’ve given yourself the best chance at hitting your goal.

As we all know, success isn’t just set in stone and it can’t be handed to anyone on a silver platter. It’s the reason why sometimes you see people with less are able to make their way to the top of an unclimbable ladder, and those with more be unable to even climb a climbable one. If you have only one goal in-sight, with enough drive and perseverance you can brute force your way to its completion.

However, you should want to be efficient and maximize your chances of getting it done (because let’s face it, a lot of us are tired of restarting our fitness journey at this point, and the rest of you who succeeded at it are tired of restarting something else).

So for any of you reading this right now, if you are serious about the goals you have, I implore you to take a moment to figure out if they satisfy the criteria for being a SMART goal. Equally as important, create enough steps between you and the goal so you’re able to climb up and reach it.

Avoid the unclimbable ladder.

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