There are two kinds of goal in life: result goals and process goals. Result goals are things like go to Paris or get married or be a millionaire. Process goals describe the actions you would have to take to get to a result goal: save up £50 a month, or sign up to a dating website and go on a first date with 3 people.

Process goals vs result goals

So what’s the advantage of process goals over result goals?

1. Two birds with one stone

To set a process goal, you’ll have a result goal in mind, so working towards a process goal will take your result goal into account as well.

2. Get specific

You’ll have to do some research into your needs in order to set a process goal. In the example of “Go to Paris”, to set a process goal that works towards this, you have to identify what’s stopping you from achieving that goal right now (lack of money). Even if you go no further than that, and just start saving £50 a month with no timeframe or total amount in mind, you’re already getting slightly closer to your goal.

3. Leverage routines and habits

By nature, a process goal is something you do repeatedly and at regular intervals. If you’re saving £50/month, you can make it part of your routine to transfer that money to a savings account every month on pay day. Or you could make it a habit to save £2 per day in cash, and pay that cash into your piggy bank every evening when you come home from work. Taking the action repeatedly builds it into your life and helps you both to remember it, and to miss it if you stop doing it.

4. Ease of tracking

Whether you use a calendar on the wall, a spreadsheet or an app on your phone, you’ll feel good when you cross off another step towards what you want to achieve. Tracking itself can become a form of motivation, if you create a chain of crosses that you don’t want to break.

5. Manageable steps

Because process goals are easy enough for you to complete regularly, you keep doing them, and then they become even easier. At a certain point, you might find they’re so easy that you can increase them a bit. That way, you’ll keep improving over time.

6. Change the way you look at yourself.

Aristotle is often quoted as saying “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” If your regular process goal is to save £50/month, you’ll come to see yourself as a saver, and someone who’s good with money. If you keep up the saving habit after you’ve been to Paris, and go on to plan and take more trips, you’ll see yourself as a traveller.

Next-level process goals

You’ve probably heard of SMART goal-setting:

• Specific

  Measurable

  Attainable

  Relevant

  Time-bound

Using our example of Paris above, how do you set yourself a SMART process goal?

Specific

First, you’ll have to decide what kind of trip you have in mind.

Let’s estimate that you’ll go from the UK by Eurostar (£300 return business class, £69 return if you wait for a special offer in standard class), stay 3 nights in a hotel (£300 in a good location, £150 for a room with shared bathroom in a less convenient area), and need to cover food and travel for three days (£300 for two nice meals a day and a couple of taxis; £75 for two fast food meals a day and a metro pass). Now you have a total amount – £900 for a luxury trip or £294 on a shoestring.

Next, you’ll have to decide when you want to go. Let’s estimate 12 months from now.

Measurable

You know the cost and timescale. To go to Paris this time next year, you’ll have to save £75/month for a luxury trip, or £25/month for a cheaper trip. Checking your savings account at the end of each month will easily measure your goal.

Attainable

It’s all very well knowing that you need to save £75/month, but what if you are currently struggling to pay all your bills on the salary you earn?

Of course, there are options. You could start up a side hustle to make that £75, or take some extra hours at work; or a second job, or sell things on eBay, or a combination of these.

If you’re already doing all those things just to cover your bills, an extra £75/month may not be attainable. But you might think that the £25/month shoestring budget is. Or you might have to adjust other parameters to make the goal attainable (shorter stay, longer timescale to save).

Relevance

Is this something that really excites you, or are you doing it because you feel like you should, or because someone else wants to?

In practical terms, did you forget that you’ll be at your cousin’s wedding this time next year, so you can’t plan your trip for exactly 12 months from now? Or are you currently banned from travelling abroad due to health issues? There may be other factors going on which mean this goal isn’t relevant for your current life situation.

Time-bound

The process goal of saving a regular amount of money will last for twelve months.

Can you see how digging down from a result goal (Go to Paris) and setting a related process goal (Save £75/month) makes your goal seem much more achievable? And the small, regular steps will seem fairly effortless?

If you struggled with last year’s resolutions, try some process goals for the next 12 months and get ready to succeed!