Whether you are a New Year’s Resolution type of person or not, goal-setting is important for professional and personal growth. It is a well-researched area and goals have been linked to motivation, higher achievement, confidence, and autonomy.

There are different ways to approach goals, and some methods will work better than others depending on your personality, internal motivators, and external factors. One of the best ways to accomplish goals is by setting up milestones and breaking it into smaller and more achievable sections.

Why Milestones Matter for Goal Accountability

Creating milestones for your goals is the simple act of taking something large and breaking it into smaller action steps. This helps with goal accountability because it creates structure to your goals and increases the likelihood for success.

Consider, for example, a goal to earn a certain amount in sales revenue for your company. If you are a brand-new company, it might be a stretch goal. So, creating milestones for each quarter of the year will help you track progress and make the goal more attainable.

Here are the reasons milestones matter for goal accountability:

• Milestones provide structure so it’s easier to track progress.
• Milestones increase motivation because you have more successes along the way.
• Milestones make goals more realistic, therefore more achievable.

Developing a Plan

When thinking about goal milestones, it’s important to create a plan. Developing a plan will help you think through your goals, determine what is realistic, and create a plan to achieve them. A goal milestone plan should include the following aspects:

• The big picture: What is your main goal? How will you know when you’ve achieved it?
• The details: What are the smaller goals within the “big goal”? For example, if you want to sell X number of units, then smaller goals are to create the product, market it, and then start selling.
• The time horizon: Milestones can be set up on a monthly, quarterly, or annual plan—or anything in between. Timelines should be realistic, but also set up so that they push you to achieve rather than slowly move between each milestone.

Ways to Create More Wins

One of the reasons milestones are so effective in achieving goals is because they provide more wins! If you just have one big goal, it might take years to accomplish that “win.” But if you break it into smaller, more achievable milestones, then you can create, achieve, and celebrate each win along the way.

One of the best ways to create more wins is to leverage professional services to help you. This could be someone like a coach or mentor who will help identify goal milestones that you can achieve. There are also professionals who can help speed up the process by using their niche skills and expertise to meet milestones for your goals.

As you set up milestones and achieve them, it’s important to celebrate each win along the way. This will motivate you and your team to keep working and create a sense of momentum towards the ultimate goal. On the flip side, it’s possible that you may not achieve each goal milestone you have set up. In that case, make sure to reflect on what went wrong and re-work those losses so that you can tackle it again.

Areas of Review

Takeaway

Big picture takeaway points

1. Milestones provide structure, increase motivation, and make goals more realistic.
2. Develop a plan and use milestones as a benchmark throughout.
3. Coaches and mentors can help hit those milestones faster.

Reflection

Self-reflection questions to think more about the content

1. What is my ultimate goal and what milestones do I need to hit along the way?
2. How much time do I have? Should I get a mentor to help speed up the process?