What sort of goal-setting methodologies do you use?

Are you aware that there is more than one way to create a goal, to create the tasks you need to accomplish in order to achieve your goals?

I have watched numerous videos, read books, read blog posts, and they all tell me the same thing, for the most part.

Brainstorm your ideas.

Choose your goals.

Create SMART goals.

SMART goals are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.

That sounds great. It works for so many people.

But what if it doesn’t work for you?

Or what if you would like to try a different, way, a different formula.

Have you ever heard of the acronym CLEAR?

CLEAR goals are: Collaborative, Limited, Emotional, Appreciable, Refinable.

In my experience, this may be more of a method used in business. Especially when you read the first word: collaborative.

But, if this way of doing things makes sense, better sense than SMART goals, would it be a bad thing to try?

If you work alone, on your own, how would you use collaborative?

For me, since CLEAR goals make more sense to my ADHD-addled brain, collaborative for me is more about the people to whom I am creating for, my readers, my followers, they are with me in this collaboration.

I collaborate with them by creating content, high-quality content, courses, patterns, and so on.

Ok, so my videos are not “high quality” compared to most, but I am not trying to be the next person who is on the top of the heap. I am not in any way trying to be an “influencer” at all. I am simply here to show others how I do things. If that helps them and/or gives them ideas they would like to try, then I have done my job.

Limited is easier.

For example, I want to write a novel. A trilogy, with each novel covering a hundred years in this faery’s family.
I want it done, now.

Well, I need to limit that goal into something I can manage right now. Limited and specific to me are very similar.

So, instead of I am writing these thousands of pages of my trilogy, my goal is to start by writing an outline.

My goal is to write a synopsis. I can write a synopsis for all three tomes if I so desire.

Then I take that first synopsis, coupled with the outline for the first novel…I take those and that is my starting point.

I write X number of words per day, dedicated to my first novel. I set novel two and novel three aside.

I set my timeline. I want to complete X many chapters—or pages—or delve this far into this timeline/storyline (given that this is a massive three-book story that will have so many smaller stories that happen during each book and intertwine through book 1.

I do not allow myself to think about what happens in/with book two or three. Not until a long time from now.

These are my limited goals.

Emotionally, I am all set. I am roaring to get this story out. I want to spew all these beauteous words onto my pages. I have to keep up that intensity, that love for the story, even when I hit a wall.

For me, I would have created something, maybe a faux book cover, that would inspire me to continue even through the hard parts.

Writing is hard. Writing a novel is even harder.

Appreciable. That one is fairly easy for me when writing. Pages add up. That is an appreciable thing.

I love this when applying it to decluttering and reorganizing the house. My goal is to fill X many bags for donation. X number of bags is appreciable.

Appreciable is something when you are doing your project. X number of days completed. X number of minutes completed. It adds up. Appreciable to means something tangible; you can add it up. You can see the progress you have made.

Refinable. To me this means changeable, or able to be changed.

I want to have, say, thirty-six chapters per novel in my trilogy.

I am writing and writing. Thirty chapters later, I have nothing else to say. The novel is done. The story is done. I am over the whole trilogy idea and this is it.

Or, I am forty chapters in to the first novel of the trilogy, and I am starting to see where the stories within the novel can lead to other books, stand-alone tales. Or other things.

Your goals need to be able to change.

I want to donate, say, ten bags of donations. I work so hard cleaning and decluttering. At the end, all I have is five bags filled.

That’s still good. Five bags is better than no bags.

Taking a day off from your X numbers of days completed or needing to add more days to complete should be easy to do. You update your goals. You update your tasks.

Maybe the focus of your goal changes.

Say your goal is removing everything from this bedroom in order to put up new wallpaper. You want to be able to have all of this done, from clear-out to wallpaper up and everything moved back, in seven days.

You get everything out. You look at the room. You look at the wallpaper you bought. You decide you want to paint part of the room and use the wallpaper on the other part.

You have the room to make that choice and that decision.

Now, SMART goals and CLEAR goals.

Neither is better than the other.

It is simply another way of looking at things, of breaking things down in order to get them done.

At the end of the day, that is all we can ask from a plan to reach our goals.