On Self-Awareness: Your Goals
Clarity and focus on your aspirations will drive accomplishments in your personal and professional life.
Now that we've explored the foundations of who you are, let’s look ahead and set goals for what you want to achieve. Setting goals is like charting a course for a ship; it gives you clear direction and a way to measure your progress. In this section, we’ll discuss how to set meaningful goals with clear objectives, results, and courses of action that direct focus to your long-term growth.
Planning for Success: Goals, Objectives, and Results
How do successful people create success for themselves? The answer is straight-forward: hard work.
But how do successful people know which work is “worth it” on the path to success? The answer: setting clear, motivational objectives for what they want to accomplish, defining measurements on how to achieve the objective, and planning out the actions they need to take to make progress toward their goal.
Successful people take their own self-awareness – core values, personality, strengths, intelligence – and match this with their aspirations. The outcome of this pairing is a focused and well-defined set of objectives, results, and actions to accomplish.
Why Use Objectives and Results
Clarity to Outcomes
Which is more important: the tasks we do (outputs) or the value we feel (outcomes)? Defining your personal objectives enables you to focus on the outcomes of your work, which enhance the sense of value in your life.
Empowerment to Impact
Understanding your objectives and goals empowers you to say no to the things that don’t create the value you want – and yes to the things that have high impact. This reduces decision-making related stress and thins your workload to only the most impactful work you accomplish.
Fulfillment in Life
Thanks to your goal’s alignment to your personality, strengths, abilities, and values, the objectives you define will unlock fulfillment both in your work and across your life.
Goals = Objectives + Results + Actions
A goal has three components: what you will achieve, how you will measure its achievement, and what you need to do to achieve it. Our formula:
Defining Your Objectives
An objective is a clearly worded qualitative definition of what you want to accomplish. Objectives are forward-looking and are focused on a long-term view of what you want to accomplish. They’re short, inspirational, and motivating.
In the business world, an objective may look like:
“Create an awesome customer experience”
“Solidify our reputation as the best place to work in the United States”
In the sports world, an objective may look like:
“Win the World Cup”
“Become the top sports podcast in the world”
In your personal life, an objective may look like:
“Be recognized in my graduating class”
“Become my best self”
Objectives define the outcomes in your life that matter most to you and connect these outcomes with the work needed to achieve success.
Defining Your Results
A result is a specific, time-bound, quantitative measurement to determine progress toward your objective. Results are focused on setting milestones along the path to accomplishing your goal. Often, there are 1-3 results per objective.
In the business world, results may look like:
Objective: “Create an awesome customer experience”
Result: Improve customer satisfaction score to 95%
Result: Increase Net Promoter Score from 25 to 35
Objective: “Solidify our reputation as the best place to work in the United States”
Result: Achieve 85% employee satisfaction score
Result: Create a pipeline of at least 25 applicants for every open role
In the sports world, results may look like:
Objective: “Win the World Cup”
Result: Average 2.5 scored goals per game
Result: Average 0.5 conceded goals per game
Result: Maintain or exceed 70% ball possession rate
Objective: “Become the top sports podcast in the world”
Result: Reach 2.5M weekly subscribers
Result: Enable 15% subscriber engagement
Result: Generate $250,000 in ad & partner sponsors
In your personal life, results may look like:
Objective: “Be recognized in my graduating class”
Result: Reach a 3.8 GPA or better by graduation
Result: Take one class across each discipline for Latin Honors
Result: Create an interest group network with at least 25 engaged people
Objective: “Become my best self”
Result: Increase my resilience score to 40 or better across all components
Result: Achieve an average of 7 hours of sleep/night
Result: Achieve an average of 5,000 steps a day
Results define the specific work you need to focus on to accomplish your objective and are intentionally designed to be aspirational and achievable.
Creating Purposeful Action
With objectives, we’ve defined what we want to achieve and our intention.
With results, we’ve defined how we measure success within our intention.
Now we need to define the actions: what we need to do to get the results to achieve our intention. These are the outputs, or the work, you need to do to achieve your goal.
In your personal life, actions may look like:
Objective: “Be recognized in my graduating class”
Result: Reach a 3.8 GPA or better by graduation
Actions: Attend every class; complete all assignments; utilize office hours each week; build a relationship with my professors; prioritize coursework over social life; take advantage of extra credit opportunities; dedicate a space for regular studying
Result: Take one class across each discipline for Latin Honors
Actions: Identify which categories are included for Latin Honors; review course schedules & handbooks for potential course options; plan my course load to incorporate one class each semester
Objective: “Become my best self”
Result: Achieve an average of 7 hours of sleep/night
Actions: Put phone to Sleep mode by 9:30p every night; wind down for 30 minutes with no screen time; use sleep meditation; track my sleep time; keep journal on nightstand for any intrusive thoughts or dreams
Result: Achieve an average of 5,000 steps a day
Actions: Buy new pair of walking shoes; track daily steps with phone; find an accountability partner / walking buddy; schedule 30-45 minutes/day for walks; use the walking pad at my desk during the day; reward myself each month that I hit this average
When your actions are aligned to your results and objectives, you take the road to success. Specific actions make the process of achieving your goals less overwhelming and provide a clear roadmap. Actions may also serve as small milestones to accomplish on your path toward your objective.
Your Goals, Your Journey
In setting and pursuing your goals, remember that this is your journey. Your goals should excite you, challenge you, and most importantly, reflect the true you. As you move forward, embrace both the successes and the lessons that come with pursuing your goals.
Action Plan for Your Objectives & Goals
Understanding the vision, goals, objectives, results, and actions for your life sets you on a clear road to success. The steps for action are below, or you can utilize The Self-Awareness Workbook from Notes from the Field. Simply download this document, review the examples provided, and follow the path outlined to better identify, evaluate, and develop your objectives and goals.
Step One: Define Your Vision
Task: Identify and write down the long-term vision for your life.
Objective: Understand where you want to go and what you want your life to look like.
Step Two: Create Your Objectives
Task: Break down the vision for your life into objectives, crafting up to three inspiring statements.
Objective: Define the outcomes of your life and what success looks like for you.
Step Three: Assess Your Objectives & Alignment with Self-Awareness
Task: Review your objectives in the context of your self-awareness, including your strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs.
Objective: Ensure that your objectives are in harmony with your personal and professional identity.
Step Four: Create Your Results
Task: Determine how to measure your achievement of each objective, crafting up to three results per objective.
Objective: Ensure you measure what matters: accomplishment of the objective, not the work needed to achieve the objective.
Step Five: Develop Purposeful Actions for Each Result
Task: For each result, create a detailed action plan outlining the steps needed to achieve it, noting any additional resources, support or skills required.
Objective: Break down each result into manageable tasks and milestones.
Step Six: Implement the Actions
Task: Begin executing the action steps outlined in your objectives.
Objective: Actively work towards achieving your set goals.
Step Seven: Monitor and Review Progress
Task: Regularly track your progress towards each goal.
Objective: Stay informed about your advancement.
Step Eight: Celebrate Milestones
Task: Acknowledge and celebrate when you reach milestones or achieve your goals.
Objective: Recognize your efforts and successes, reinforcing positive progress.
Step Nine: Adjust or Evolve Goals as Needed
Task: Reassess and modify your goals and action plans if circumstances change or new information arises.
Objective: Maintain flexibility and relevance in your goal-setting approach.
Step Ten: Reflect and Learn
Task: After achieving a goal, reflect on the process, what you learned, and how it contributed to your growth.
Objective: Extract valuable lessons from the goal and achievement process.
More Resources on Your Objectives & Goals
Want to dive deeper into this topic? We recommend:
Read
Book: "Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals" by Michael Hyatt
Hyatt offers a five-step plan to help you design and achieve your best year ever. He focuses on setting goals in different areas of your life, including your career, finances, health, and relationships. The book provides practical tools and techniques to break down your goals into actionable plans.
Book: “Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones” by James Clear
Clear offers a proven framework for getting 1% better each day. It’s the guide on how to design a personal system where good habits emerge naturally and unwanted habits fade away.
Article: How to Set & Achieve Life Goals
Understanding goal-setting theory is only one step toward crafting personal life goals. In this article, take a closer peek at some ideas and resources that will help you set out on the right path, and stick at it for success.
Blog: How to Achieve Your Goals Easily
Using this one basic idea, I have made consistent progress on my goals every single week without incredible doses of willpower or remarkable motivation. I want to share how I use this strategy and how you can apply it to your own life to improve your health and your work.
Watch
TED Talk: Why the Secret to Success is Setting the Right Goals
In this practical talk, Doerr shows us how we can get back on track with "Objectives and Key Results," or OKRs, a goal-setting system that's been employed by the likes of Google, Intel, and Bono to set and execute on audacious goals. Learn more about how setting the right goals can mean the difference between success and failure — and how we can use OKRs to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable.
Video: How Google Sets Goals
Google Ventures Startup Lab | GV partner Rick Klau covers the value of setting objectives and key results (OKRs) and how this has been done at Google since 1999. Understand the key attributes of effective OKRs and how to apply them in your own organization.
Take Action
The Self-Awareness Playbook by Notes from the Field
Ready to deepen your self-awareness? Engage with the modules outlined in the playbook to understand, develop, and track your own self-awareness.
The Self-Awareness Journal by Notes from the Field
Self-awareness is a continuous journey. Our weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual journal templates are available in Notion to deepen the connection and evolve your own self-awareness.