Latham and Locke (1990) researched goal setting, particularly, what helped people achieve their goals vs. what made them fail at meeting their goals.
- Avoid “Vague” goals; instead, set very specific goals.
- (e.g., Become a successful scholar vs. Finish my dissertation by spring 2026)
- Understand the difficulty in meeting a goal and what it will take to accomplish it.
- It is very demoralizing to set goals you cannot meet..
- Set realistic goals, but challenging goals.
- In examining 400 studies, Latham and Locke found that people who set challenging, but not unreachable goals, had the most forward progress.
- Break down goals into smaller parts (see below).
Goals: Long-term achievements (things you want to accomplish over time).
Objectives: Smaller accomplishments that help us achieve a larger goal. Think about these like milestones. If your goal is to walk 10 miles, each milestone is a step towards that goal.
Tasks: Specific activities you can do to meet objectives (take each step, drink water).
The key to success is to set challenging and yet reasonable larger goals, break them down into objectives, and then break each objective into a number of tasks. Then, when you sit down to write, you know what you are doing and already have a plan.
Strategies for Using Goals, Objectives, and Tasks
- At the beginning of each writing session, review your goals, objectives, and tasks. Review the tasks you are planning for the day.
- Go about your writing session; focus on accomplishing the task of the writing session.
- After accomplishing the task, give yourself a reward and cross it off your list—it is an accomplishment!
- Before the end of your writing session, review your goals, objectives, and tasks. Make any changes necessary to your task list and leave a note for yourself so that the next time you sit down to write, you are ready to write.
- See your tasks and objectives as an evolving list. You may find that your goals, tasks, and objectives may require tweaking when you start.
- When you first start setting tasks, you will likely be off on the time it may take you to meet them. Over time, you will improve at estimating how long it takes you to do tasks.
Download Monthly Goals Setting Calendar (pdf)
Download Activity: Setting Objectives, Goals, and Tasks (pdf)