What Best Describes The Relationship Between Short and Long-Term Goals
What did you want to be when you were young?
An actor? A doctor? A sports start? A singer?
What happened? I can tell you what happened. More than likely, you gave up on those dreams because you were told they were unrealistic.
Do you want to know the real reason you didn’t become what you wanted to be when you were young? You didn’t set goals.
This may sound crazy, but the relationship between having a successful long term goal and attainable and actionable and attainable short term goals along the way can result in you achieving your dreams.
The good news is if you’re reading this, there’s still time for you, no matter your age. Keep reading and you’ll get the following in this article:
-Characteristics of Short-Term Goals
-Characteristics of Long-Term Goals
-Advantages of Short-Term Goals
-Advantages of Long-Term Goals
-The Synergy Between Short-Term and Long Term Goals
-Balancing Short-Term Actions with a Long-Term Vision
-Goal Setting Techniques
Don’t get overwhelmed, it sounds like a lot, but I’ll make sure to guide you through it.
Characteristics of Short-Term Goals:
1. Immediate Focus: A short-term goal is something you should be focusing on within a 2 year time frame. Anything longer than that turns into an intermediate or long-term goal that may caused you to procrastinate
2. Specific and Actionable: If you don’t make your short-term goal specific and actionable, you might as well not even make the goal. The idea is having something concrete, so you know when and how to achieve it.
3. Stepping Stones: Short-term goals should build off one another. Think of building a pyramid. Seriously. Start with the bottom and keep building to you get to the top.
4. Skill Development: You should focus on gaining skills within each short-term goal you set for yourself. You should feel like you’ve accomplished something and have a skill to show for it.
5. Measurable Outcomes: You should know without a shadow of a doubt (to quote The Rock) whether or not you’ve achieved your goal, so it should 100% be measurable.
Characteristics of Long-Term Goals:
1. Future Vision: A long-term goal hould really focus at least 10 years into the future. This gives you plenty of time to set up short-term goals along the way.
2. Broad and Strategic: The long-term goal should be well thought out and put you in a better situation than you’re currently in.
3. Major Achievements: The long-term goal should be something big that you’re looking to achieve. You should be reaching for something that is currently unattainable.
4. Flexible Planning: You should make your goal so that there is some flexibility along the way to change it if necessary. Life can always take unexpected turns.
5. Alignment with Values: A good long-term goal is in line with your personal values and be something that is going to make you aim for self-improvement.
Advantages of Short-Term Goals:
Short-term goals help you achieve something right away, and in the short-attention span world we live in, if we don’t get something right now, we may lose interest.
An example of this could be if you’re looking to have a lean bedroom.
You may get overwhelmed thinking about how you’re going to clean the entire room with clothes on the floor, papers everywhere, a ton of dust, and an unvaccumed carpt.
Instead of curling up into a ball and crying because you’re overwhelmed, you can make short-term goals to help you see progress:
1. Pick the clothes up off the floor.
2. Fold and put away the clothes.
3. Put the clothes into drawers.
4. Dust the room.
5. Vacuum the room.
This may sound ridiculous to put into short-term goals for cleaning a room, but for someone who isn’t able to easily clean their room, this is something that will help them see immediate results when they complete each step.
Advantages of Long-Term Goals:
Setting a long-term goal for yourself helps you to direct where you want your life to go. Without a long-term goal, you might find yourself just kind of…well. living. There needs to be some sort of meaning, something for you to want to achieve.
A long-term goal will help you do that.
You can also set a series of long-term goals if you really want to be intentional about life.
Maybe you want to buy a house, get married, have kids and retire wealthy. These are all things that can be achieved in a series of long-term goals.
Once you have your long-term goals nailed down, you can begin to line your path with short-term goals.
The Synergy Between Short-Term and Long-Term Goals
How Can You Relate Your Long-Term Goals to Your Short-Term Goals?
The best way to make sure that your goals relate to each out is by deciding on your long-term goals first. Then, you can fill in your short-term goals to create the path to your long-term goal.
Let’s look at this example:
When I was in middle school, I had the dream that I wanted to be on the radio.
Long-Term Goal: Be a Radio Personality
Since I was in middle school, I couldn’t just apply for radio jobs (those child labor lawsin America…)
What did I do instead? As I got closer to high school and a little bit more of a brain, I made a few short-term goals to put me in a position to achieve my long-term goal.
Short Term Goals:
1. Become more outgoing
2. Get comfortable speaking in front of the class/groups of people
3. Volunteer at a college radio station
4. Network and make connections in the industry
5. Apply for radio jobs after I graduated from college
I was lucky enough to finally get a job in radio after I graduated in college as a News Anchor and Reporter. I had accomplished my long-term goal which was great, but didn’t take into account how difficult and low-paying the radio industry was so I didn’t stay in the industry for too many years.
The moral of the story is, I set my long-term goal and was able to put together short-term goals that were related to the long-term goal I had set.
Balancing Short-Term Actions with Long-Term Vision
Let’s take a look at one of my favorite artist/entertainer of all time Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem who can help demonstrate how to balance your long term vision with short-term actions.
Once Eminem realized he had the passion and skill to be a rapper, he had the long-term vision to become one of the greatest of all time. (In my opinion he is, but this isn’t a rap blog you can go to Vibe or The Source for rap takes).
How did he stay on the path of his long-term vision while focusing on the present?
1. He constantly worked on his rhyming skills
2. He signed up for rap battles
3. He found mentors to help him along the way.
It wasn’t all roses and sunshine for Marshall though, and there were times where his short-term actions didn’t exactly help him towards his long term visions.
-Drug problems
-Relationship issues
These were just a few things that almost derailed his career.
Why is this important to you? Well, it shows how important short-term actions can be to your long-term vision. Eminem was lucky because he had some distracions along the way that could have ruined his vision, and it’s easy for us to get caught up in the short-term with things that could derail us as well.
If you feel like your long-term vision is in jeopardy because of things happening in the short-term, it’s important to get help as soon as you can from a mentor.
Goal-Setting Techniques
1. SMART criteria for short-term goals. Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound.
2. Backward planning to align short-term actions with long-term aspirations. The best way to make your goals relate to each other is to think about the long-term first and then work backwards from there.
3. 3. Maintaining Focus and Motivation. You need to have something that motivates you. Whether it’s your family, success, etc., having a motivation for your goals will ensure you put in the effort to achieve them.
4. Regular review and reflection on progress. Whether you want to check in on your goals at the beginning of every year, halfway through the year or every month, make sure you are doing a good amount of self-reflection along the way.
5. Adapting goals to changing circumstances without losing sight of the long-term vision. Life happens and it’s important to be honest with yourself. Honesty will help you reflect on your goals and change them along the way if necessary.
What to Do Next
Now that you have all of the information, it’s time to take action.
It starts with self-reflection to figure out what you want to do with your life and develop some goals from there.
Remember, it’s your life, so if you make goals and they don’t feel right, make changes. You’ll probably fail a few times along the way, but that’s just life.
If you need help figuring out your life, your goals, and your path, the best thing you can do is to reach out to your friends and expert coaches at Your Career Strategy. You’ll get a FREEE consultation to figure out the direction to take and how you can start on your path.