FIELD Objectives: What Characteristics Should My Life Goals Have?
In psychology, as well as in coaching, there are different techniques to identify and correctly state those results that we want to achieve in the short, medium or long term. We talk about what are known as goals or objectives (whether vital or not).
One of the problems when establishing our own personal objectives is that although we can outline them with some ease, we subsequently tend to procrastinate, either because the goals are very general, the language is too technical or the objectives have little expectations. realistic.
To solve this problem, some varied techniques have been proposed such as SMART, PURE and CLEAR (among others) that, although useful, are not consistent with each other, so if a person follows one of these recommendations, they would not necessarily be doing it well according to another different tool.
From our center we have established a system to state objectives using the positive characteristics of the three methods mentioned above, recasting its main characteristics into what is known as FIELD objectives (each letter of the FIELD words includes a positive characteristic of the objectives or goals that you want to set) ). You can see them below, as it may be interesting to help you structure any personal or professional goals that you have in mind and that you need to outline. In this sense, the objectives should be:
First of all, the goals that one sets must have the essential requirement of constituting some type of challenge. The reason is that without challenge, there is no motivation, so in the end if there is not something motivating to strive for, the human being gets bored, procrastinates or abandons the corresponding task.
2. E: SPECIFIC
Many people make the mistake of stating a goal in a very general way (for example: ‘I want to lose weight’), when the correct thing is to set a goal in the most specific way possible, with the maximum amount of detail (weight, size, specific place, time, people involved, specific results to be achieved, etc.). A specific example would be the following: ‘Increase the number of visits to our website by 50%, from 3,000 to 4,500, within three months.’
3. C: UNDERSTANDABLE
If you do not understand the objective to fight for, in the end neither you nor other people will fight to achieve it. For example, Saying ‘I want to be a better person’ is something general and can give rise to many interpretations depending on who is reading that phrase. Another example is ‘that it obtains in the following year an additional gross margin of 5% with respect to the results achieved in the previous year in comparison with our related company’.
In this last example, although it may be a specific goal, if it is an objective to be met by a group of employees, not everyone may be familiar with terms such as ‘gross margin’ or ‘related company’. Furthermore, not everyone has to know which related company we are referring to.
If a goal cannot be achieved, it will make the person tend to procrastinate. For example, if you set the goal ‘to be the most famous writer of all time and revered for centuries to come’, what will probably happen is that you will tend to give up writing early. However, generating a small goal such as ‘Dedicate an hour a day set in advance for five days a week to writing my new novel’ can generate better results.
In this sense, we must be especially careful with perfectionism when setting unattainable goals in any time horizon. It is best to structure realistic goals, achievable in a limited period of time.
5. M: MEASURABLE
The more you specify your goal in quantities, the better, because your mind will know when you have managed to meet it. In one of the previous examples, a person wanted to lose weight. OK! But certain doubts arise… How much? Two kilograms? Fifteen? Making your goal measurable means specifying it more and, therefore, focusing more on a specific objective to achieve.
6. Q: POSITIVES
If the objective is written in positive terms, the mind understands it much better and in a faster and more motivating way than if it is written in negative terms. Avoid the word ‘no’ or verbs that imply avoidance behaviors.
7. O: RESULTS ORIENTED
In one of the previous examples, we talked about a person who wanted to be better in moral terms, but it was a general goal that depends on many personal factors that vary for each person. In this sense, it is better to focus on clear results to achieve. What do you want to achieve with your work by fighting to finish a certain task?
For example: ‘I would like to study to achieve this in the range of obtaining an outstanding in the subject of natural sciences, between 9.1 and 10’. From here you can obtain secondary objectives aimed at this result:
Conclusions
FIELD objectives allow you to structure your goal planning in a realistic way to avoid procrastination, using all the benefits of the SMART, PURE and CLEAR methodologies, without needing to meet all the characteristics associated with these techniques.
