“Don’t change the goal, increase the effort”, an advice that addresses a secret but common problem as far as achieving any goal is concerned. The concept behind this quote is that our most defining moments are those saddled with challenges and the way we respond to them makes or mars our pretty shiny goals. 

However, the focus is not on the challenges we face when pursuing a goal. No, that is not what the “increasing effort” advice speaks about. It is not even about breaking down in the face of these challenges. The real problem is that many people choose the path of least resistance. They run away from making any attempt to overcome a challenge and, instead, choose to change the goal completely. 

If you happen to fall into the category of people who are held hostage to this problem, then we should stress that the solution you seek lies in increasing your efforts rather than switching goals - and this is even more rewarding. A solid reference is the story of Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the light bulb. 

Edison was not just known for the impressive innovations he developed but for the daunting efforts he made toward his goals in that, the inventor tested 2,000 different materials and made a striking 1,000 attempts before succeeding at inventing the light bulb. This could be you - of course, we mean the part where you scream eureka after failing to turn away from a challenging goal. 

Illustrating Increasing Efforts 

The entire process of setting and pursuing a goal is identical to trying to wake up with the help of an alarm. 

Your goal is to wake up early for an important occasion the following day. However, after having a long and stressful day at work, you still spend countless hours sorting out some personal stuff. Late into the night, you’re finally set for bed. 

You tuck yourself under your duvet, set an alarm for 5 a.m., and hope to cheat nature by having a quick nap but feeling well-rested in the morning. “Ten minutes later”, your alarm clock bell is chiming, and the entire gadget is fussing right next to you. Your poor and inconsistent efforts towards the goal of waking up begin to make a mockery of you.

Your eyes are heavy, your body is weak, and your mind is in no good shape to face the hustle and bustle of a new day just yet. This is the turning point—the deciding moment. In the heat, you opt to change the goal and turn off your alarm. Treating your goals like this will not only put you in trouble. It will also dampen your progress and overall productivity. So what do you do?

How about creating a simple plan that itemizes your daily routine, makes room for unforeseen events, and spells out a strict bedtime that you will stick to? Creating this plan and following through with it each and every day will represent your increased and consistent effort toward the goal of waking up on time. 

Understanding Goals: As a Way of Learning to Make the Right Efforts

In this section, we will help you understand goals by running through the process of creating them, the popular challenges, and the role of goals in personal and professional development.

How to Create a Goal

Figure Out The Goal

What is your goal? Why is this your goal at the moment and not something else? How is this goal relevant, and what will it seek to achieve? These are all the questions you should ask. 

Figuring out your goal typically requires critical thinking, especially toward prioritizing one possible goal over the other. As simple as it sounds, you may find this a daunting task. You can always get some help by sharing your ideas with friends or family who will help you sort things out.  

Write Out The Goal

You need to pen down your goal on paper no matter how good you are at memorizing things. This serves as a source of reference in the long run - and not only that, neuroscience explains that writing down your goals builds a strong sense of attachment and commitment toward them.

Consider How to Measure the Goal 

Goals are almost useless if they cannot be measured. First, measuring lets you understand the impact you’re creating - either on yourself, the community, or both. Secondly, understanding the positive impact of your goal is mentally rewarding.  

Measuring reveals your progress and the quality of your process. This could be done by analyzing factors such as time taken, challenges encountered, and the need to be flexible or adopt new actions or strategies. It creates a picture of where you are at in completing the goal, and whether the process is/was easy with minimal delay or challenges, difficult with several unforeseen events, or completely unprecedented and requiring you to switch from your initial goal strategy. 

At the end of the goal process, you may want to measure your result or output. This could be;

• straightforward and only answer the question of whether you succeeded or failed in achieving your goal, or
• complex and involve comparative analysis to measure the success of a specific goal against other similar goals - either performed by you or someone else. 

Furthermore, measuring your goals may involve a look into the derived outcome. This seeks to know “what changed.” It answers questions such as how the goal contributes to making you a better person, what impact it has on an aspect of your life, such as your health or mental well-being, and how it might affect your immediate community. In summary, outcome measurement 

Prepare for Common Obstacles

There are unique challenges to every individual goal. However, the unique challenges are always preceded by more subtle and common challenges such as procrastination, fear of failure, lack of support, and lack of clarity. 

Many people underestimate the potential of common obstacles to ruin big goals. Unfortunately, this often happens. You, therefore, need to ensure that you leave no stone unturned - whether big or small - in your plan to achieve a goal. Here’s a great article to assist you with that.

Determine the Goal Period

Are you looking to achieve your goal in one year, month, week, or less? You need to think this through, set a timeframe, and stick to it. Goals that are not tied to any delivery time are often very much prolonged and even forgotten or abandoned. This article provides great information on goal setting and timelines.

Moreover, it is necessary to remember that your chosen goal period could be directly tied to the goal's success or that achieving one goal may be a prerequisite for beginning another goal or activity. In such situations, adhering to your goal timeline becomes mandatory, and the timeframe must be well documented for reference. 

‍The Role of Goals in Personal and Professional Development

Regarding personal life, setting goals always creates a sense of responsibility. Furthermore, there is the aspect of acquiring new skills, developing a sharp learning curve, and increasing one’s social standing. Individuals who set and follow through on their goals are more likely to build confidence and a sense of fulfillment and equally experience overall well-being. 

In the professional sphere, goal-setting is a recipe for corporate growth and establishment. Individual employees can take advantage of the opportunity to advance their careers and take up more meaningful roles. For companies, the same could lead to a better stand among competitors and a generally positive outlook. 

The Pitfall of Constantly Changing Your Goals

Following the alarm clock illustration, it is obvious that there is a common temptation to change goals in the face of difficulties. Giving in to this temptation creates pitfalls. Some of these are; 

Resistance and Fatigue:

Switching between goals means that you (and your employees or team members) repeatedly redirect your energy and focus on new commitments. This is tiring for the average person, and over a short period, it could lead to reduced motivation, stress, and a feeling of prolonged fatigue. 

The brain-derived emotion, fatigue, will significantly hinder achieving your set goal. It saps one’s energy, causes sleep disruptions, and strengthens resistance toward new goals or activities.      

Waste or Misallocation of Resources:

Another pitfall of changing goals is the misallocation of resources. Time, energy, and finances that have been dedicated to previous objectives will become irrelevant or unavailable for the new goal. There is no need to say that such an attitude could severely impact one's finances and do much to dent their competence. 

Difficulty in Evaluating Progress or Impact:

Continuously changing goals makes it impossible to determine successes and failures. In addition, there is no room for one to learn from mistakes and improve their decision-making process when they perpetually go from one goal to another. 

The Power of Increasing Effort and How To Go About It 

Achieving the mindset shift: from changing goals to enhancing efforts represents the single most effective way to boost your goal effort. Thomas Edison, who we mentioned earlier in this article, is again a perfect example here. As history goes, the American inventor and businessman had dedicated countless hours trying to get his light bulb invention to work. 

A reporter reached out about this and asked “How does it feel to have failed 1000 times?” He responded by saying "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." 

This intriguing perspective underscores Edison’s mindset toward his goal. It also explains his daunting determination, proving that the right mindset sets the pace for effortlessly increasing one’s input towards their goal.

How can you build such an optimistic mindset for your personal goals? Six readily impactful steps are; noticing the positives, celebrating little wins, believing in yourself and your capabilities, learning fast, embracing failure and setbacks as stepping stones, and constantly expecting good things. 

There are also several actionable steps for pushing your efforts rather than changing your goals. These include:

Setting Realistic Goals

We believe that the phrase, “Jack of all trades, master of none” refers to people who fail to set realistic goals - and precisely, make the mistake of pursuing so many unrealistic goals all at once. 

Waking the path of sounds and achievable goals, instead, involves carefully choosing your goals (in terms of number and complexity), the timeframes, and deliverables or expectations. All of these three factors have to be balanced out properly. They shouldn’t be overbearing or in poor sync with one another - and where possible, they should create some room for irregularities or uncertainties that may arise along the way. 

Balancing Flexibility and Commitment

When pursuing a goal becomes challenging, one of the foremost solutions could come from moving between commitment and flexibility. The role of commitment is to strictly hold on to the ideas or actions that support a goal. With it, one is bound to their initial plans and does not have the choice of doing otherwise or reversing a decision. 

Flexibility, on the other hand, is a commitment to an end goal but not to the actions or processes that lead up to that goal. For instance, let’s say you have a two-month body-building goal. Along the way, you figure that you can achieve your goal in the set time but with fewer workout hours. Full commitment will restrict you from changing your workout hours plan whereas flexibility will allow you to do so.  

Pursuing a goal can put anyone in a situation where they pick between commitment and flexibility. If you find yourself at such a crossroads, the wise choice is to;

• carefully determine if the goal will be altered or not by adopting a new action or process plan. 
• If the goal does not change, then you need to think about all the possible downsides or implications of the new process. For example, whether it will increase the goal period or present any legal issues.  

Utilizing Feedback

Professional and personal goals sometimes include other people. These people fall into one of two categories: part of the goal-makers or part of the demographic being impacted by the goal output or outcome. Given their positions, people who are aligned with a specific goal are in a good position to offer feedback. Their valuable information could present a new perspective, an easier approach, or highlight mistakes and potential setbacks - setting the stage for increasing efforts rather than changing goals. 

The steps to successfully utilizing feedback are as follows:

• Proactively seek feedback:

You may wish to conduct surveys through focus groups or one-on-one discussions. The time available for this exercise and the quality of the feedback you require will help determine your choice of survey.  

• Listen to feedback attentively:

One thing for sure is that you do not want to go back to the drawing board realizing that you didn’t capture all of the feedback made available to you. Listening helps ensure that this doesn’t happen. 

• Reflect on feedback critically:

 Critical reflection implies taking a close look at the feedback you received. You must be ready to leave out prejudice and sentiment to get whatever the message is.   

• Act on feedback promptly:

Feedback is not intended to be put away for safekeeping - at least, not until it has been acted on. Take prompt steps to implement decisions that arise from your critical reflections.  

• Give feedback constructively:

There’s a part to receiving feedback and there’s equally a part to giving feedback. You can think of this as exchanging ideas towards a common goal. While giving feedback, you must ensure that your contributions address relevant issues, that they inspire a positive change, and that they are based on good intentions. 

• Review feedback periodically:

Certain feedback will be relevant beyond the lifetime of a single goal and for many years to come. Bearing this in mind, it is important that you periodically review feedback about your goals to see how well you are aligning with them. 

Conclusion

There’s no better way to say it: tuning up your effort pays far more than constantly switching goals. Thomas Edison made the light bulb after 1,000 attempts, Abraham Lincoln became the President of the United States after losing his bid for four elective positions, and the list goes on and on. We hope you feel inspired enough to give long-term goal pursuits a shot. Let us know about your achievements in the comment section.