"Stretch" Goals

 If you're not familiar with the term, a "stretch" goal is a target that's set above what you expect to  accomplish. For example, if your non-profit usually raises $50,000 a year in donations, a "stretch" goal might be to aim for $60,000 for the coming year.

Stretch goals aren't designed to scare you. They're designed to help you grow as an individual; to get you to think of new methods, techniques, and strategies; to get you to think outside the box. They're designed to be slightly uncomfortable because growth doesn't start until we leave our comfort zone. Think of the state as "productive discomfort".

But do they work? American psychologist, and pioneer in goal-setting theory, Edwin Locke, looked at a dozen studies to see if he could find a quantitative correlation between a goal's difficulty, and its achievement. According to Locke, "the harder the goal the higher the level of performance...Although subjects with very hard goals reached their goals far less often than subjects with very easy goals, the former consistently performed at a higher level than the latter." This meant that even when they didn't achieve their goals, the employees with stretch goals were not only more productive, but they were also more motivated and engaged.

Think about when President John F. Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon, and return him safely to the Earth, before the end of 1969. We hadn't even REACHED space, much less put a person in orbit. This goal went WAY beyond a "stretch" goal. It was what author Jim Collins, in his book "Good to Great", called a BHAG - "Big Hairy Audacious Goal".

When you're setting your goals for the coming year, what goal makes you uncomfortable to think about trying to achieve? What seems like a pipe dream? Maybe those should be your stretch goals or BHAGs for the year!