Short, medium and long-term goals

Most aims set beyond 6 months in the future will involve more than one course of action, and most aims are a long way off, meaning that there could be a significant number of different steps required. The above example is one such case – the lady in question wants to maintain a healthy bodyweight for the rest of her life and feel attractive, and the SMART goal she has set for that is to lose 4 dress sizes by the time her wedding comes around.

This is obviously not the end of the road. What this represents is a medium-term goal, a goal that plans out the next 6-12 months of the individual’s life and takes her further towards her aim. Once it is completed she needs to set a new challenge. This will be the case for most aims, and planning the whole thing out loosely can help you orient yourself properly. For many there is no need to formally write out a full A-B process, but having a wider plan in mind can help you to keep things in context and understand where you currently stand. Generally, an aim will be met by a given number of long-term (12 months plus) and medium-term (6-12 months) goals, themselves made up by short-term goals.

To illustrate what we mean, let’s look at our bride’s plans:

• Aim: To achieve and maintain a healthy weight, and be proud of how I look
• Medium-term goal: To drop 4 dress sizes before my wedding day
• Short-term goal 1: I’m going to lose 2 dress sizes in the next 12 weeks. Process goals would be simple, mostly focused on the basics of food. Tracking level A
• Short-term goal 2: I’m going to maintain my new weight for 2 weeks while I’m on holiday. Process goals would be based around flexibility and moderation when considering food. Also, probably a process goal involving tracking steps while away
• Short-term goal 3: I’m going to lose another 1.5 dress sizes in the next 14 weeks. Process goals largely involve increased exercise and moving to tracking level B
• Short-term goals 4 and 5: I’m going to lose the last little bit while taking up Crossfit to help improve my shape over the next 16 weeks. Here process goals would perhaps move her to level C tracking and increase her calories, along with joining the local Crossfit gym and attending 4 times per week
• Short-term goal 6: I’m going to maintain my weight and improve my fitness over the next 8 weeks until the wedding. Here the process would be to increase calories again and improve exercise performance via increasing training frequency

At this point a new long or medium-term goal would be set.

As you can see, there is an incremental increase in the effort required by each process goal in line with the distance that the bride is away from her wedding day. The closer you are to your goal, generally the more effort is required to keep progressing, so breaking down any longer-term aim into shorter term ‘bursts’ allows you to prepare yourself for this.

It’s also wise to allow more time than you believe is needed for each step. If a short-term goal is likely to take 8 weeks, plan for it to take 10, because this allows for unpredictable anomalies or temporary drops in adherence. Without this contingency, it can become necessary to alter everything else you are doing, possibly resulting in a significant setback. After you have completed this planning process, however, the work is not quite over. Progress is not linear and it would be unusual for the entire process of goal attainment to occur without any issues arising.

 In order to be successful, you don’t only need to plan out how you’re going to move towards your endpoint, you need to be aware of how you’re going to adjust your approach should you suffer a setback. Without being aware of this it’s very likely that the second or third hurdle experienced will represent the end of your efforts, and you need to look at the means by which you can prevent this from happening.