Learning How to Set and Reach Your Goals

Do you actually want to change, improve, and keep your goals? Learning how to set, and reach your goals is an art of being a successful person. Almost everyone has heard of SMART Goals before and if not I will explain them later, but more important than setting a SMART goal is the secret is learning how to set a VGPA. What is VGPA? It is the art of not just setting a “goal” but learning how to set a meaningful goal that you can achieve.
VGPA stands for:

• Vision.
• Goal.
• Plan.
• Accountability.

I learned VGPA from a hedge fund manager. He was coaching a group of volunteers when He taught us that one of the most lasting lessons we could learn, or teach someone else, would be how to set and reach goals. Let me break down each part to help you understand why and how to set a VGPA.

Vision: What do you want?
(A broad long-term goal that you want)

Before you can set a goal, you need a vision of what you want, Most of the time a single vision can lead to many goals. A vision is what you want. It is the core desire of what you are working toward. An example “I want to have a beach body” or “I want to become a director at work” Now that you have a vision you can start to set goals to achieve it. The important of vision was emphasis in the couplet from Thomas S. Monson, “Vision without effort is daydreaming, effort without vision is drudgery; but vision, coupled with effort, will obtain the prize.”

Goal: What is a SMART Goal to achieve it?
(A specific short-term goal that leads to the vision)

Most of our goals do not even make it off the launch pad before they reach the trash heap. I want to share a secret; you set SMART goals. If you set a dumb goal, even the best of plans will not help you achieve it. What does SMART stand for?

• Specific.
• Measurable.
• Attainable.
• Realistic.
• Timely.

Taking your vision “Be healthier this year”, an example of a bad goal would be “lose weight.” The reason this is a bad goal is the fact it is vague and there is no way to measure if you accomplish that goal, or if you are failing at it.

Whereas if you set the goal as something reasonable like, “To have my beach body, I will lose 10 lbs. of fat by the end of the year.” Then you can measure your progress, and you can actually achieve your goal that leads you to your vision.

It is important to note that you are not limited to one goal per vision; you can have many goals to help achieve your vision.

Remember the goal is not the end, but it is meant to help you reach your vision. Not all goals can or should be SMART goals. As Albert Einstein put it, “Many of the things you can count do not count. Many of the things you cannot count, really do count”

Plan: How are you going to achieve your goal?
(A detailed how-to for achieving the short-term goal)

This is where you make the plans to achieve your goals. Continuing with the losing weight theme, your VGPA could be looking something like “To have my beach body, I will lose 10 lbs. of fat by the end of the year. To lose that weight I will get up an extra 60 minutes early every morning to go to the gym. I will get to bed no later than 10:30 PM, and I will cut soda and sugary drinks”

The plan is where you detail HOW you will make your goals a reality. This is the most often skipped step. A good plan will often have multiple steps and by far take the most thinking of any aspect of the VGPA.

Something important to realize your planning is that your life is already full. If you want to make room for something like going to the gym, learning a language, or going back to school, you need to cut something out to make room for it.

Accountability: Whom are you going to report to?
(Keeping your “feet to the fire” on your plans, whom are you going to be following up with?)

Accountability is the key to this method. Finding a way to report your goals keeps you honest, and adds a level of ownership that goals without accounting lack. For my personal goals, I report via Facebook every month by posting an update on how my goals are going. If I am coming up short, or if I am on track. This allows others to encourage me or inspire me to do better. In addition, I report when I have accomplished one of the goals. Another method is to have friends include them on your goals and aspirations and return and report to them. For my work goals, I report to my manager each month, quarter, and annually on how my goals are going.

To continue with our fitness goal it could have an accountability like “I will do weekly weigh ins and text my best friend, and monthly I will post my status update to Facebook, even if I gained weight.” Ultimately, to set a goal without following up on it would be like buying a pair of movie tickets and not going to the movie! However, when you start to report, proactively, to your friends, family, and peers you will notice the viral nature of crowd-sourced commitment and accountability you will learn the true power of the principle of return and report.

“When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.”
Thomas S. Monson