Goal Setting: Why We Abandon Goals & What You Can Do Instead

You wouldn’t be the first salesperson who’s seen their motivation wane in recent months. Challenging conditions (whether economic or logistic) often mean that personal and career goals are discarded.

But what about the many years of good intentions that lie in our wake? Why haven’t we run that marathon, despite telling ourselves every 12 months that this year is THE year?

Why do we set goals or resolutions that are left by the wayside within months if not weeks?

Well, it may come down to how you set your goals, whether they are genuinely achievable, and how you keep yourself motivated when the going gets tough.

In this blog, we discuss why pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and taking a black-and-white approach to goal-setting does not always yield the best results.

Panic Goals vs. Stretch Goals

If you had a pound for every time you heard about the importance of pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you’d probably be relaxing in the Bahamas rather than reading this blog. However, the distance beyond your comfort zone can vary, and deliver hugely different results.

Often, setting the bar too high can lead to overwhelm and panic.

If you’ve spent most of your spare time over the last year slumped on the sofa in front of Netflix, and a friend suggests entering a marathon at the end of the month, you’ll probably panic and likely tell them where to go.

However, if they suggest a 10k race (a quarter of the distance), that may be a more achievable, and therefore motivating, goal. Once you’ve completed a 10k race, you may feel that you could have a crack at 10 miles or even a half marathon after a bit more training – eventually building up to a full marathon by the end of the year.

In short, you need to set goals that will stretch but motivate you, not goals that you soon realise are unrealistic, send you into a panic, and are swiftly abandoned.

Emotion is a Stronger Driver Than Logic

Studies show, particularly when it comes to buying decisions, that we act on emotion and justify with logic. This is something to bear in mind when determining your motivation for setting and working towards goals.

If it’s raining, the prospect of cosying up to a few more episodes of the latest bingeworthy show, rather than getting out for a long run, is probably going to be more appealing. This is a decision based on emotion (you just don’t want to go).  You’ll justify this decision with logic – “Missing one run won’t matter,” “I might make my sniffle worse,” “I might slip over and injure myself.”

However, if you’ve arranged to meet up with a running partner (or even if you’re working through a training schedule where your partner or coach can track your progress on Strava), you’re more likely to get out for that run.

If we try to apply logic, the reasons you give yourself for not getting out for the run may be the same, but vocalising them to someone else make them seem, well, a bit weak. Emotions and ego come into play. You’re potentially more concerned about how you’ll appear – uncommitted, lazy, or, for want of a better word, a bit of a lightweight.

On the other hand, this might push you a bit too far, to where you find yourself training despite an injury because you’re concerned about what others think of you.

This brings us on to triple goal setting.

Triple Goal Setting

As the last few years have unequivocally demonstrated, life never goes according to plan. So, you need to have some flexibility in your goal setting. A tried-and-tested method is triple goal setting, which we’ll refer to as Pride goals, Medium goals and High goals.

What do we mean by this?

If we return to the running analogy, those of you who have trained for a marathon know that it rarely goes exactly as planned. If you’re following a three-month training programme, how likely is it that you’ll make it to every single training session?

Sessions may be abandoned because that sniffle has developed into something more debilitating, the deadline for a large work project is unexpectedly brought forwards, or those pesky workmates keep dragging you out for “a” pint.

As a result of all this, you’re rarely hitting the five training sessions a week that would lead to a sub-four-hour marathon. This means you have to adjust your goal expectations.

High – Medium – Pride

• If you’ve only missed the odd training session, then you could still feasibly get round in under four hours – which is your High goal.
• If you’ve averaged nearer three to four training sessions, then you could probably get round the course at a slower pace, in under four and a half hours – your Medium goal.
• In a worse scenario, you might have managed two sessions a week. In this case, you know you’ll spend a lot of time walking. But hey, you’re still going to get round and raise money for charity. In short, this is preferable to pulling out, and you’ve hit your minimum “Pride” goal.

Now, if you’ve already prepared for these three scenarios before you start training, meeting your Medium or Pride goals will not feel like a failure. You’ll stay motivated because you’re still on course to meet one of your goals.

You should take a similar approach when you’re setting sales goals.

For example, your High goal might be to be the best-performing salesperson in the organisation; your Medium goal to beat your sales performance from the previous year; and your Pride goal to hit your commission threshold.

Focus on Processes as Much as Outcomes

There’s nothing more heartbreaking than spending months training for a marathon and then having to pull out at the last minute. However, setting and achieving smaller goals along the way is an important part of keeping yourself motivated.

For example, you should celebrate every time you reach a new distance milestone – whether that’s six miles or ten miles – or every time you have to buy new clothes because your old ones are getting too baggy.

Likewise, set yourself goals for prospecting calls, growing your LinkedIn network, or booking in face-to-face/virtual meetings. These are the activities that feed into the larger goal and keep you motivated over the long-term.

Maintaining your motivation is particularly important if you have a long sales cycle of several months or more.

There’s clearly a lot more to goal setting than what we’ve covered here. To hear about why a member of the SBR team has staked money on hitting his pride goal and 10 Steps to Effective Goal Setting, have a listen to our webinar ‘Effective Goal Setting’ for a strong 2021.