Can Medium term goals change your life? Hell No!
But there are a few principles that help you to crush your goals & potential to change your life. Please read further…
On the 31st of December evening, A 30-year-old man sits on his rooftop and reflects on the year passed by, he realizes that never failed to have a new year goal since his late teens.
Once his goals are set, he starts working on them with full intensity. After a few days passed, he forget about his goal. He now and then works on his new year goal. But as weeks pass by, the desire to achieve his goal diminishes.
Sadly, he had given up on his goals without his knowledge.
Now he is scared of his age, and how he spent his years so far and frustrated about being an average man(which happens when you move from the ’20s to 30)
Can you relate to this man and his feelings? If yes, I am glad to know it.
Do you understand why he failed in his goals?
Please read till the end to find out:)
How to set goals?
Goals are an objective or a milestone to achieve which in the end leads to improving our well-being.
Goals can be categorized into three areas:
- Short-term goal.
- Medium term goals or mid-term goal
- Long-term goal.
Short term Goal:
These goals can fall from a week to less than a year to complete a task.
E.g. If you are an engineer, you might need to complete a project and submit the final report to your client within 3 weeks. This can be a short time goal and can affect your reputation if not delivered.
Medium term Goals:
Goals in this category can fall from a year to a 3-year time frame.
E.g. The above engineer can’t be an individual contributor after gaining a few years of experience in his career, now he/she needs to learn new technology or upgrade his skills and becomes a team leader/ manager. Here the drive to accomplish the goals is self-driven.
Long-term Goals:
Goals in this category can fall from 5 years to a decade or longer.
E.g. Currently, Our engineer guy is not satisfied with his manager position, now he aims to become the next head of technology/CTO in his firm by accomplishing advanced leadership skills from reputed universities.
Goals are smart
S- specific
M- Measurable
A-Achievable
R- Relevant
T- Time-bound
Specific: Was our engineer guy specific about his task which needs his immediate attention?
Measurable: Engineers loves excel sheet, I am sure the actual timeline & his day-to-day activities to finish his task are measured by himself/ his supervisor.
Achievable: Our guy is smart in having achievable goals. A bit of stretch is okay to achieve the goal! What if our guy aims to be the next Elon musk? The odds of becoming one is very slim.
Relevant: The goals of our engineer were relevant to his field and career. Suddenly out of the blue/due to an inner calling, he didn’t go and start a construction business (No offense to it!)
Time-bound: All the goals were time-bound. We can’t have a goal without a deadline. Engineers goals had deadlines starting from weeks, months, and finally years.
What is more important than a goal?
Is there something more important than having a goal?
Of course, yeah!
Having a goal is not a guarantee that you will accomplish your goal.
Oh, some researchers say writing down a goal helps you / increases your chance of achieving the goal.
What if I write my goal in big capital bold letters with permanent markers and binge on Netflix all day? Can you say now, writing down goals should help in achieving the goals?
It’s neither the goal nor writing the goal, it’s a system which helps in accomplishing the goal.
The concept of the system is derived from atomic habits by James clear. The system helps you to develop good habits and these newfound good habits lead you to achieve your goals.
System – Same day, same time, same reps (My version)
When I started this blog a year ago, I never wrote an article or published it my entire life.
I created a system that everyday morning at 10:30 am in my home office, I just sit and write down 350 words/ day for six days a week.
Somedays I wrote and sometimes I failed. I just focused on moving the needle a bit and I gained consistency over after some time. This system helped me till today, as I writing my 51st blog post.
I don’t consider myself as a seasoned writer now but a better version than my 1st blog post writer.
Also writing a blog comes in Medium term goals because the success of a blog takes more than a year time or two.
Create a system to crush your goals!
Why do you need medium term goals?
Corporations, politicians, and the government around you must have made you more familiar with long term goals than any other thing in life. Long-term goals usually take 5 to 10 or more years to accomplish it.
Medium term goals are not complicated, it’s simply a mini version of long-term goals.
You are giving half a time of long-term goals to accomplish the medium term goals.
When more time is given to a goal, you are telling your mind to believe it and less effort is needed. In most cases, it can lead to less effectiveness.
That’s why we need medium term goals which are carefully slit in the place of long term goals to achieve more in life.
By ditching long-term goals and also adopting medium term goals, you can achieve 3x-5x more than an average person.
Example of medium term goal:
Having an medium term goals is achieving an objective or outcome. It goes without saying, any goal needs time, commitment and guidance to achieve it.
Some of the medium term goals examples areas fall into:
- Finance
- Career
- Health & Fitness
- Personal life
Whatever the objective should be achieved within 3 year period of time, it maximize efficiency and productivity.
How do medium term goals impact?
Medium term goals impacts on finance:
Everyone should have money goals.
Why? Money matters! Money is not an evil, the wrong thoughts behind money are evil. (enough preaching)
Some of the financial goals can be included:
- Payoff the debt
- Buy a house
- Setting aside money for retirement
- Having money to meet emergency needs
- Diversifying your investments.
Must read: 13 Extreme frugal living tips to try
Medium term goals impact on Career:
In your Career goals, consider things you want to achieve or which position you want to be in next 3 years.
Action needed are
- Developing your skills
- Getting a mentor
- Learning hard skills in short time
- Getting international experience
- Doing a degree or accomplishing recognized courses.
Medium term goals impact on Health & Fitness:
Health is wealth! That’s where fitness comes into play
Action needed are
- Joining a local sports team
- Hitting the gym or exercising 4 times a week
- Focusing on better nutrition
- Maintain your diet & weight
Medium term goals impact on Personal life:
Personal life is related to your family, friends, and things which are important to you as an individual.
Action needed are
- Be a giver to your family & friends’ circle
- Be a great listener
- Being available or reachable
- Doing activities together
- Create a bucket list and hit it
Final Thoughts
Lets get to the story which you encountered in the intro part.
Why did he fail?
His goals were just thoughts. It can also take the liberty of calling it as “wishful thinking”.
Many people wish, and few people create goals, but an outlier creates a system and crushes his goal.
Be an outlier and do epic things!
Thank you for reading:)
