Process-Based Goals and Outcome-Based Goals - Why You Need Both

Outcomes are important. Everyone desires specific outcomes.

Lose 10 pounds,

Earn a fat bonus.

Buy a cabin.

Retire at 50.

Compete in your sport.

So go ahead and set those outcome-based goals! You need them!

But, alas, they can only be a starting point in your process.

Here’s why also setting process-based goals is critical to progress:

✅ Achievability - You need to feel like progress is possible in order to maintain motivation.

✅ Creating a Roadmap - If your map only shows the destination without a route to get there, that map is of no use to you. In fact, it isn’t a map at all… it’s a paper with a dot on it. Setting process-based goals establishes a path for how to get to your destination.

✅ Building Confidence - Setting smaller, short-term goals gives you bite-size pieces of success as you travel towards your destination. Confidence cultivates motivation.

✅ A Basis for Evaluating Progress - Once you have created a roadmap, you can set an evaluation checkpoint to assess whether your roadmap is, in fact, moving you towards your goals. Based on that assessment, you can tweak your process-based goals as needed to improve their effectiveness.