How long is a short term goal?
With all of this talk about goal setting, you’ll quickly learn that there are basically 3 different types of goals that people talk about:
- Short term goals
- Medium term goals
- Long term goals
But what are the differences between these specific types of goals?
And why does it matter?
At first glance, designations like these can make goal setting seem complicated.
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Goal setting doesn’t have to be a complicated ordeal.
In fact, it’s so simple that anyone can get started with it—literally today.
And in this post, I’m going to help break down what all of this means, so that you can get past the confusion and get started with a productive goal setting habit right now.
Personally, I believe 100% in the value of dreaming big dreams, turning those dreams into goals, and then writing those goals down to create a roadmap for success.
However, it’s important to know what the differences between a short-term goal, a medium-term goal, and a long-term goal actually are so that you can use goal-setting to your advantage in achieving the outcomes you desire in life.
Let’s break it down.
The Basics: How Long Are Short, Medium, And Long-Term Goals?
What Is A Long-Term Goal?
Different people may give different answers to this question.
But I tend to define a long term goal as a goal that’s going to take 5 or more years to complete.
For example, starting a new online business and growing it to the point where it replaces your current level of income is generally going to be a long-term goal.
Getting a doctorate degree at college is another example of a long-term goal.
How Long Is A Medium-Term Goal?
I generally define a medium term goal as a goal that’s going to take anywhere from 1 to 5 years to achieve.
Some great examples of a medium term goal could be to lose 100 pounds, to perform major renovations on a house in your spare time (to the point of completion), to get an associate’s degree either online or through community college, etc.
How Short Is A Short-Term Goal?
I usually define short term goals as goals that are going to take less than a year to achieve.
This means that daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, and quarterly goals all fall within that short-term goal timeframe.
Some examples of short term goals could include daily to-do list items, losing 5 pounds, getting a new job, making a new friend, starting a journaling habit, etc.
How To Set Short-Term Goals
At one level, setting short-term goals is pretty easy.
For example, you could create a to-do list to help you plan and organize your day.
This is probably the simplest example of how to set short-term goals and achieve them.
With that being said, you can also go a lot deeper into this process.
If you really want to get serious about making plans for your future, you’ll probably want to start setting long-term goals and then breaking those goals down into medium-term goals—which you’ll then break down into short-term goals, which you’ll then break down into simple daily tasks/habits.
This will help you create a literal roadmap to success.
Let’s walk through the steps required for this.
1. Identify The Long-Term Objective
For the sake of this example, let’s assume that the objective is to lose 100 pounds.
For the purposes of this example, let’s come up with an imaginary person who wants to change his life for the better…
So, meet Greg.
Greg is 6 foot 2 inches tall, and has a goal of achieving a healthier 200-pound body weight.
But as of right now, Greg weighs 300 pounds.
He knows that his health and wellness outcomes will be much better if he can lose that extra 100 pounds and give himself a boost in his health and fitness.
However, this is a big goal!
Greg knows that trying to achieve this goal too fast is going to be unsustainable and frustrating—and that it will probably backfire and result in failure.
Therefore, he’s doing the smart thing—and settling in for long-term, sustainable weight loss.
He plans to make this a long-term goal so that he can achieve it over the next 5 years.
2. Break It Down
Greg has set a 5-year time frame on his quest to lose 100 pounds.
So his next step is to break that long-term goal down into medium-term goals.
Since he has 5 years to lose 100 pounds, he’s going to divide 100 by 5 to see how many pounds he needs to lose on a yearly basis. This gives him a figure of 20 pounds per year.
Excellent!
Greg now knows that in order to achieve his long term goal, he just needs to lose 20 pounds per year for the next 5 years.
Next, Greg breaks this goal down even further into monthly increments.
If you take 20 pounds and divide it by 12, that gives you a figure of 1.6.
Greg now knows that he needs to lose just 1.6 pounds per month in order to reach his objective.
Next, he breaks it down by week.
1.6 divided by 4 equals 0.4.
Greg only needs to lose about a half a pound per week in order to reach his goal.
This means that he’ll need to create a 1,750 calorie deficit each week for the next 5 years in order to reach the long-term goal.
When you break this down per day, you end up with 250 calories.
In other words, Greg will need to burn an extra 250 calories every day, 7 days a week, for the next 5 years to meet his goal.
But guess what?
When you break it down this far, you quickly realize that this is actually a very achievable goal.
If Greg walks for just an extra hour every day, or if he cuts out an extra 250 calories worth of food per day, as long as he stays consistent with it, he’ll reach his goal—and that’s not too bad!
This trajectory will put Greg on course to lose 100 pounds of body weight within 5 years.
This is a goal that may otherwise seem insurmountable.
But once it gets broken down into medium and short terms goals, and spread out over time—you can see that it actually becomes very achievable.
This is the power of writing down future goals and planning out how you want to focus your time and energy.
3. Make It A SMART Goal
Greg also learns that when you set SMART goals for yourself, you’re much more likely to achieve the goal.
So he makes sure to set the goal in a manner that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
4. Write It Down Every Day
Science tells us that the people who write down their goals are much more likely to succeed than people who don’t.
Personally, I’m a huge advocate for writing down your goals on a daily basis.
People who write down their goals every day are simply much more likely to stick with them for the long term than people who don’t.
This helps to keep you focused, and it helps you to keep your head in the game.
You can also give yourself a powerful advantage by finding an accountability partner.
This further increases your odds for success.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has given you some useful information that’ll help you with understanding not only how long is a short term goal, but also how this information can help you in your goal-setting and life-success journey.
Of course, at the end of the day, this is just another part of the larger, overarching process of turning your dreams into goals, and writing those goals down to create a roadmap for success in your life.
This is how you begin your journey to success and crush it.
Need some help? Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.
You can also sign up for my email list to get a free copy of my Goal Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell