How to Set Goals

Today we’re going to talk about How to Set Goals and the importance of doing so.

The reason to set goals is simple: because it gives you a greater sense of purpose.

One of the reasons why you game is because it fulfills a sense of purpose for you:

Read: How to Find Your Purpose

You have a mission to go on, you have a boss to defeat, you have a level to achieve, and this is all done in an easy-to-follow structure way. Having a sense of purpose means you actually have a reason to be playing.

So what happens after you quit is that you no longer feel that same sense of purpose in your life and a lack of purpose can lead to lack of motivation and even depression.

Read: How to Get Motivated After You Quit Gaming

If you listened to the advice I’ve shared previously to find new activities, great job, but the mistake we make (and so many of us make this mistake), is that we start filling our time with these new activities, but without being intentional with what the activities are and giving ourselves the reasons why we want to do them.

This is where goal setting comes in.

If you have chosen new activities instead of gaming, make sure you set a goal for each of them.

Next I want to walk you through a couple different steps you can take to set proper goals, because there’s a very big difference between the quality of goals you set.

The right way to set goals is to follow this formula: S.M.D.A, which stands for:

• Being Specific
• Being Measurable
• Having a Deadline
• Having Accountability

These are the four pillars of goal setting that make a huge difference.

An example of being specific is “I want to learn how to play guitar” vs. “I want to learn these specific songs on the guitar.”

Those two goals are going to give you a very different experience when you’re pursuing it. The latter is much more specific.

Measurable: you want your goals to be measurable. You want to know if you are making progress on them, and it’s ideal to see your progress, daily.

An example is again if you have specific songs that you want to learn, you’re able to see how much closer are you today to being able to play say even one of those songs, than you were yesterday.

Next, you want to have a deadline.

A deadline gives you a very specific time that you need to accomplish the goal by, which is why even though you’ll procrastinate on doing your homework or studying for your test, when it’s the night before you stay up all night to get it done.

You have a deadline.

So same thing needs to happen with your goals: you need to have a deadline.

The last pillar is accountability and having someone holding you accountable to pursuing these goals or working on them makes a big difference.

One of the easiest ways to find accountability is to actually join us on the Game Quitters Forum and sign-up for an accountability partner.

An accountability partner is someone you will work with, to help each other out, support each other, give feedback, encouragement and hold each other accountable to going after and pursuing your different goals.

To recap, you want your goals to be specific, to be measurable, to have a deadline and to have accountability.

The next step is to take each of your new acttivities and create a goal for each of them using the SMDA formula.

Here is an example from my experience:

When I first quit gaming I started to learn how to DJ and what I decided to do was to launch a podcast where every single month I had to put out a one hour mix full of different songs that I liked, and I had to release it publicly.

Now throughout the month I was able to see my progress: how much closer was I to getting it done? What else did I need to finish?

I had a deadline, I had accountability and it was something specific – an hour long mix – so that helped me brainstorm different ideas, find new songs, mix them together and then every day when I went to DJ, I actually had a very specific reason why I was DJing.

Having a specific reason why you’re doing something helps you avoid doing it just to kill time, which you will easily justify going back to gaming because you’re just killing time anyways – might as well do it gaming.

Setting and accomplishing goals is a lot of fun. You feel that greater sense of progress, you develop more confidence in yourself (because followed through and got it done), instead of just procrastinating.

Goal setting is great and it’s something I do all the time, so it’s something I encourage you guys to do too.

If you’re still gaming and you are ready to quit, commit to your 90 day detox today and grab a copy of Respawn to help you with it.