Powerful Alternative Goal-Setting Strategies You Should Know

In many creative fields, it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of generating and sharing new ideas. When it comes to focusing and executing those ideas, however, remaining grounded and always knowing what the next step in the plan is can be a challenge.

Even if your eventual objective is clear, figuring out how best to get there can be hard for even the most organized teams and minds. And when your goals are innovative and fresh, there may be no other concrete precedents to use as an example to reach your destination.

One thing is clear, though, whether your long-term goal is to successfully launch your new company, prototype a new product, or increase the number of clients for your freelance work, you are not likely to succeed without a proper strategy and execution plan to get there.

You need to strategize well in order to bring your ideas and projects to life. Don’t allow your ideas lose momentum and fall by the wayside.

And while detailed strategies and plans may seem burdensome, they don’t have to be that way. The right goal setting strategy can actually make you feel even more inspired and empowered to achieve your goals by reminding you how possible your goals are.

However, finding the right strategy to follow so that you can meet your goals and objectives can be challenging. But it is still possible to find the right strategy that's right for your goals.

S.M.A.R.T Goal-Setting Technique

A popular strategy that is well tested and relied upon by many teams to achieve goals and complete tasks successfully is the S.M.A.R.T. goal setting strategy. This acronym stands for creating goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable,Relevant and Time-Bound.

For many projects, this can be a great foundation. But, as with everything else you find and apply in your creative and professional life, you must first consider whether S.M.A.R.T. goal-setting is best for your specific needs at any given moment.

For example, when you’re still in the dreaming big stage of a new endeavor, you may be unable to specify enough to effectively set S.M.A.R.T. goals. In that case, you will need another alternative strategy that's more fitted to your situation and effective to help you achieve your goals.

9 Alternative Strategies for Setting & Achieving Goals

According to the experts from credit repair and monitoring service CreditRepair.com, there are at least nine alternatives to the S.M.A.R.T. strategy that can help you find the right execution plan that will enable you to not only work smarter, but also aim even higher and achieve your goals.

The ironically named D.U.M.B. goal-setting strategy, which stands for Dream-driven, Uplifting, Method-friendly, and Behavior-driven, for example, asks questions about your dreams to help you focus, and may better help ground your ambitions.

Alternatively, sometimes simply following the S.M.A.R.T. strategy may make you feel restricted - like your best ideas are being stifled under the weight of making things achievable. In that case you could give H.A.R.D. goal-setting a try.

The H.A.R.D. goal-setting strategy is a model that stands for Heartfelt, Animated, Required, and Difficult, and it ensures that you’re following your internal compass to the best and pushing yourself to your highest levels of achievement.

Other alternative goal-setting strategies you can use include: C.L.E.A.R, W.I.S. E, F.A.S.T, G.R.O.W, O.K.R.s, K.P.I.s, and S.M.A.R.T.E.R goal-setting strategies. Figuring out which model will best help you progress on your journey to success is simply a matter of asking yourself the right questions about your goals.

Take time to reflect on how you work best, how structured you need to be, how quickly you need to adapt, and how ambitious you want to be in order to determine and select the right goal-setting strategy for you.

More On Alternative Goal-Setting Strategies - Infographic

The experts at CreditRepair created an insightful infographic highlighting a total of nine alternative goal-setting strategies you can use. Check out the infographic below to learn more about the different goal-setting strategies mentioned about and how to figure out which type of model is most in line with your skills, environment, and objectives.

Once you have a clear path forward that allows you to connect your dreams to your everyday life, nothing will be able to get in your way.