10 Steps to Set Goals for Your Project—and Actually Achieve Them

People always say that you should plan everything in order to achieve your goals, but most of the time forget to actually tell us HOW to do it. Trust me, it took me many years in high school to finally understand how to actually set goals and create plans to guarantee that they are achievable. 

My name is Bea, I’m a student coordinator from Brazil and on this blog I’ll share with you what helped me achieve my goals in my projects while also being a full time student, working and enjoying life. 

1. Start With Why (No, Seriously—Why This Project?)

As young people, we often jump into projects because they’re cool, someone invited us, or FOMO (the famous Fear Of Missing Out) hits hard.
An important step to creating your goals is identifying: Why am I doing this? What do I want to learn? Who do I want to impact?
A clear “why” makes staying motivated 100x easier.

2. Dream Big, But Start Small

Try to imagine the end result, where you want to be in a year or more. Then break down where you need to be every term to get there. Then every month. And what you need to do every week to achieve that.

And don’t forget to arrange tasks in a way that can fit into your school/life routine.

3. Define What “Done” Looks Like

We often set vague goals like “improve the project” or “work harder.”
But a way to guarantee that tasks are being done in the right way is to define specific outcomes:
• finish a first draft
• get 10 sign-ups
• run a 30-minute meeting
This gives us something measurable to aim for.

4. Break Your Big Goal Into Mini-Goals

Slicing a big project into weekly or even daily tasks makes it feel doable.
Creating a plan that has specific steps for small intervals of time helps us feel that progress is being made, and it helps you track how much as well.

Celebrate the small wins! Getting all the tasks done in a day, finishing something in advance, setting a goal and going beyond it… Those are all reasons to celebrate with your team, it helps to keep up the spirit and motivation!

5. Find Your Timeline (and Don’t Make It Unrealistic)

Create a timeline for your project that makes sense to you and your team. No one is a superhuman, and no one wants to leave school or your social life aside for a project. 

Know that you can in fact do it all, you just need to stick to the organization skills that work for you! 

6. Keep Your Goals Visible

A vision board, a timeline on a big piece of paper somewhere everyone will see, a google calendar with daily reminders of the deadlines… All these strategies help your goal to stay fresh and not fade into oblivion.

You should be able to see what you’re working towards.

7. Share Your Goals With Someone

Accountability that doesn’t feel like pressure.
Maybe a friend, sibling, co-leader, or mentor. Make it sound friendly, like: “Let someone hype you up or remind you you’re capable when you’re doubting yourself at 10 p.m.”

8. Expect Things to Change (Because They Will)

Changing plans is normal, not failure. More than we hope for, our plans don’t always work as we expected, sometimes a deadline is not rightly measured, or an event doesn’t have the outcome we expected. So, creating a plan that’s clear on steps, but also flexible, can contribute to avoiding the feeling of deception.

9. Reflect and Reset

Always ask these questions:
What worked? What didn’t? What needs adjusting?
Reflection helps you stay intentional instead of going on autopilot. It redirects the plan when things go off the road and helps you keep on track for the actual end goal!

10. Be Kind to Yourself When You Miss a Goal

We tend to  beat ourselves up easily. A missed deadline is not failure, we’ve talked about accepting that things will change, but we also need to be kind to ourselves when they do. And trust me, they will.

Your goal is bigger than the small tasks leading up to it. You have a plan, it might (and probably will) change. Things will go out of your control sometimes. 

But it’s important that you keep going, that you look at the goals that you created and take action to achieve them.