Setting Yourself Up for Success: 8 Steps to Successful Goal Setting

1. Setting Goals Vs. Making Resolutions

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The beginning of the year is always a great time for goal setting for me. And not in the sense of making resolutions along the “New Year New Me” concept. I realized a long time ago that I can mostly only make successful goals around habits I already have or can easily implement into my life. Deciding on January 1st that I am going to change my whole life just doesn’t work. But I think you know this already.

Still, I feel that after the holidays I have enough headspace to review the direction I am heading in personally and professionally and make necessary adjustments that will help take me towards my dreams and vision. I also find written goals invaluable because they are tangible proof of my commitment that I can revisit and adjust time and time again.

2. Understanding Your Vision and Defining Your Goals

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In the first step of successful goal setting, I think it is crucial to understand your vision. Effective and aligned goals are not going to just roll out immediately. I usually do several rounds of brainstorming and refining until I get to something that is truly close to the matter at hand and will lead me to where I want to go.

Make an effort to define your personal and professional aspirations by writing them down and editing them until you are happy with them. In your business, strive to align your goals with sustainable values. That is the lifeline of your business at the end of the day. And finally, you can make a conscious effort to connect your professional goals with global impact.

How can you do this? Take the mission of your business as a starting point. What is the positive change that you want to achieve? Is it more sustainable adventures, eco-friendly accommodations, or creating opportunities for local communities? Create your goals around your values and break them down into small achievable steps.

3. Creating Milestones and Incorporating Sustainability

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Structure with goal setting is important. Just because you set a goal, doesn’t mean that you are going to achieve it as well, unless you have a clear path to follow through on it. Create milestones that you can achieve and celebrate along the way. These small steps will ultimately lead you to your final goal.

You’ve probably heard about SMART Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals already as well. It’s become a very fashionable term the past couple of years, but it doesn’t mean that it is not a highly effective way to set goals. Incorporate sustainability in both your short- and long-term objectives and regularly measure the impact your goals have on your business and the industry as a whole.

In the book "The ONE Thing" Gary Keller talks about work-life balance, and how it is a deeply flawed concept. In everyday life, it is almost impossible to strike a perfect balance between work and life. He says life is a counterbalancing act. As if juggling balls. You can drop the ball on work and pick it up again, but you can’t drop the ball on family, friends, health, and personal goals because your life will suffer. So, make sure you prioritize personal goals and be aware of where you want to put the most effort in your professional life.

4. Navigating Obstacles with Resilience

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Goal setting and achieving them along these principles might seem like a straightforward process, but it’s inevitably going to bring its challenges. It’s a good practice to identify potential roadblocks from the get-go, not to feel defeated by them, but to build up resilience. Take a moment to look back at your goals from the past year. What have you learned from them? How have the challenges helped you understand sustainable values better and practice them more mindfully in your business?

By being mindful of the setbacks along the way, you can become empowered and turn them into opportunities. They can show you the way to collaborate and build better relationships. They can help you discover new ways of being sustainable in travel or find a creative workaround to a problem.

5. Cultivating a Supportive Ecosystem: The Power of Community

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Another thing that can help you in more successful goal setting is cultivating a supportive ecosystem of individuals and businesses around your goals. Share your goals and progress with them and help each other by keeping each other accountable. Engage with like-minded businesses in the pursuit of our sustainable goals. These can lead to partnerships and meaningful collaborations down the line.

6. Embracing Flexibility and Adaptability

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Goals are not rigid formulas either. By writing them down you can visualize how they will work out for you and then get down to work on them. Still, you might realize along the way that your goals are shifting or are not serving you anymore in the way you envisioned them when you wrote them down. Give yourself grace and let the goals evolve and change with your circumstances or vision. Make an effort to stay true to your core values but feel free to adapt the path so that it best serves you and your sustainable business.

7. Celebrating Success

Don’t stop at just planning out the goals. Plan out how you are going to celebrate them. Create milestones, big and small, and celebrate all of them. You will feel much more motivated to continue along the path if you give yourself time to celebrate and reward yourself for what you have already achieved. Have you been craving a spa day lately? Link it to one of your most achievable goals and when you do, go all out. Or wanted to visit that faraway country for years? Make it a reward for achieving one of your bigger business goals this year. Give yourself the reassurance that you would give your child. On the inside, we are all just that and we operate the best when we are encouraged and rewarded.

8. Inspiring Others: Sharing Your Sustainable Goal-Setting Journey

Don’t keep all your goals to yourself. Share your journey of your sustainable goals with your community. Inspire people by sharing your goals and the hardships and wins that come along the way. Encourage your clients to follow suit and live more sustainably through goal setting. Build a community around your goals and you will have your own group of cheerleaders to cheer you along.

Final Thoughts

Setting goals is a powerful tool for more purposeful living and conscious businesses. Especially in the niche of sustainable travel, we need conscious, attainable goals. Write down your goals and rally people around them. Make your goals reflect your sustainable values and adapt them as needed while on the path toward success. Inspire your community by sharing your goals and your journey. And last but not least, don’t forget to enjoy the journey and celebrate your wins, big and small. And celebrate your failures as well, they are your best teachers and helpers in course correcting.

What goals have you set for yourself and your business this year? I would love to hear about them in the comments.