Short Term Goals Can Be Set To Achieve Specific Long-Term Goals

What are short-term and long-term goals? Can short-term goals be set to achieve specific long-term goals? How do short-term goals help to achieve long-term goals?

Hi, I am Sean Galla, a facilitator for men’s support groups and forums with over a decade of experience. Part of my job involves creating safe spaces where men can learn about issues affecting their everyday lives, including understanding how to set goals. If you want to understand goal setting, you are in the right place.

Creating short-term and long-term goals

You can set both short-term and long-term goals. You can achieve short-term goals within a short timeframe, usually a few weeks or months. A short-term goal is anything achievable in the near future. Short-term goals include:

• Attending a seminar.
• Saving for a short local vacation.
• Attending a personal development online class.

However, short-term goals are stepping stones to achieving your long-term goals.

Long-term goals are things you intend to do in the future or over an extended period, usually one year or more. Long-term examples could be a stock market investment, starting a business, or saving for retirement.

Long-term objectives need a lot of consideration, resources, and effort to achieve and may include several short-term objectives. As long-term goals require considerable time to achieve, they need patience, motivation, and persistence.

These objectives involve major changes and greatly impact personal growth and professional development.

Setting both short-term and long-term goals is possible. Short-term goals are executable independently, but you must split long-term goals into smaller short-term ones to fulfil them.

Differences between short-term and long-term goals

The major difference between the two goals is that short-term goals are:

• Time: Short-term goals are easier and faster to achieve, and long-term goals take longer
• Approach: Short-term goals focus on immediate action and have a more strategic approach, while long-term require immense patience, planning, and strategy.
• Flexibility: Short-term goals need deadlines for you to focus and progress. Long-term goals have more flexibility. You can get better results if you adjust this type of goal for several months.
• Multitasking: You can easily manage short-term goals and multitask between them. Long-term also allows for multitasking, and several short-term goals can help achieve the long-term goals

•       Motivation: Time: Short-term goals are easier and faster to achieve, and long-term goals take longer
•       Approach: Short-term goals focus on immediate action and have a more strategic approach, while long-term requires immense patience, planning, and strategy.
•       Flexibility: Short-term goals need deadlines for you to focus and progress. Long-term goals have more flexibility. You can get better results if you adjust this type of goal for several months.
•       Multitasking: You can easily manage short-term goals and multitask between them. Long-term also allows for multitasking, and several short-term goals can help achieve the long-term goals.

Are Short-Term Goals Specific?

Short-term goals are usually very specific. Good short-term goals are SMART, an acronym for:

• Specific: You have to define what you want to accomplish. For instance, don’t just say you want to read more books this year. Say I want to read 12 books by the end of the year.
• Measurable: How will you tell if you accomplish your goal? Reading 12 books by the end of the year is vague, so change it to I want to read one book a month.
• Achievable: Is the goal realistic? Don’t say you will read 200 books by the end of the year because that is unrealistic and almost impossible.
• Relevant: Why is the goal important to you? Why do you want to achieve this goal? For instance, you might read the 12 books as part of a book club.
• Time-bound: When is your deadline? You become more motivated if you have a specific end date to have achieved the goal.

What is The Most Important Step in Prioritizing Goals? Read to find out.

Short-term goals can be set to achieve specific long-term goals

Short-term goals are crucial in breaking down large objectives into smaller and achievable goals. When you set and achieve small goals, you feel a great sense of accomplishment and remain motivated and focused. You can also learn a new skill and celebrate your milestones.

Have an Action Plan

For your long-term plans to become successful, they must connect to your day-to-day activities. Don’t set goals and forget about them. Follow up by constantly updating the progress by the end of the day or week. With the set short-term goals, checking your progress and seeing if you are on track is much easier. Use project management tools to help you automate reminders for your progress and help you reach your professional goals.

Have Some Flexibility

 Philosopher Heraclitus stated that the only constant in life is change. After making plans, things might change, shifting your goalposts. Be flexible enough to adjust when the unexpected happens and take actionable steps to change the goals to suit the new circumstances.

Accompany each goal with an actionable step.

Pair each goal with an action that you need to take to get closer to accomplishing it. For instance, if your goal is to become an author, enroll yourself on a book writing master class by a successful author or commit yourself to writing a specific number of words per week for one month.

Here are some goals setting questions to consider.

Setting short-term goals to reach long-term objectives

Now that you know that short term goals can be set to achieve specific long term goals, here are some ways to set short-term goals to reach your long-term goals.

You can take three steps when planning short-term goals:

Identify your long-term goals

When you know your larger objectives, you can easily split them into smaller goals to help you reach them. Identify and evaluate longer-term business goals that would take time, such as opening a physical store for your business.

Set SMART goals

The SMART framework helps you achieve your objectives faster by becoming as specific as possible about what you want. The SMART formula ensures your goals provide a roadmap to the desired outcomes.

Keep track of progress.

You can track progress on your short-term goals and see how well they will lead to the long-term goals. For instance, write every day in a journal on what you have done per day. Run a tally of all days worked in a row in your goal. Get mentoring from a friend and ask them to keep you accountable to avoid slacking. Visualize the big picture of the already completed goal every night before bed or every morning.

Tips for creating long-term goals

To set short-term goals, you also need to know how to set long-term goals. Here are some tips you can use for setting long-term goals:

Think of what you want to achieve in five or ten years

Categorize your objectives, ranging from personal to financial goals. If you align your objectives, your principles, and what matters most, you motivate yourself to complete the goals.

 In a company setting, consider your metrics and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) today and where you want them to be in a few years. In your long-term career goals, think of your projected career path. Where do you see yourself in five years? What is your long-term vision for yourself and your personal goals?

Work in Retrospect

As Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, said, everything makes sense when you join the dots looking backward. When you start working from the perspective of an already accomplished goal, you can create small steps and not get overwhelmed, knowing it will eventually pay off.

Break the goals down.

Break the goals down into small and attainable or achievable steps. An example is exercising for an hour daily (short-term) to lose 50 pounds (long-term). When you make the goals smaller and achievable, you feel motivated to keep doing more, and it does wonders for your mental well-being.

Create monthly goals

Review your monthly plan and scrutinize it and how you intend to get to your long-term goals. If you want to write a book, create a monthly goal of 3000 words per month.

Ensure you review this goal every month to check if you accomplished the goal. If you did not accomplish the goal re-evaluate it and see why you did not achieve the ultimate goal. Maybe you did not follow the right template, had no time, or had writer’s block.

Adjust goals

When life changes, so do your goals. Check in now and then to see if anything has changed. If so, adjust your goals. These adjustments align with the monthly goals.

Adjust the goals when you discover why you did not reach your goals. Readjust, recalibrate, get a good sense of direction, and move forward with your personal or professional life as these goals apply to either.

Join a support group.

Even if you have supportive friends and loved ones cheering you on, it helps to have a group of men who truly understand the journey to self-discovery from personal experiences.

One of the best things you can do on your journey to becoming your best self is to join a men-only self-improvement support group like Men’s Group.

Self-improvement support groups are a wealth of resources and support. Being part of a support group like MensGroup ensures you have like-minded friends who keep you accountable and help you set and achieve your goals. 

The bottom line

Setting goals is something that any person can do, be it short-term or long-term. Short-term goals are usually easier to accomplish. However, one needs to be more deliberate and intentional for long-term goals. You must be dedicated and committed to follow through with an action plan. Joining a support group such as a Men’s Group can go a long way in ensuring you set goal and stick to them.