---
title: "Directional goal setting"
description: "A simple 2 step process to align yourself to your long-term goals."
source: "Preetam Nath"
canonical_url: "https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/directional-goal-setting"
published: "2020-06-15"
updated: "2021-01-24"
---

# Directional goal setting

It’s hard to live life without goals.

You can totally live without any as I’ve tried before, but aimlessly wandering is only fun for a short while.

On the other hand, going hardcore on your goals and forgetting everything else completely, aka forgetting how to live, is too far on the other extremity.

What I found works for me is - directional goal setting.

It's a simple 2 step process to align yourself to your long-term goals.

## Step 1

**Long-term thinking**

For a given goal, imagine where you want to be in a long time horizon, say in 1-2-5-10 years. Imagine it vividly, in great detail.

For example, my directional goal with health is that I am maintaining my weight, my body shape, muscle mass, fat % are at healthy levels. I don’t imagine being a ripped beach bod in 10 years. I also don’t imagine being a dad bod in 10 years. I imagine being fit. I should be able to climb 10 flights of stairs, I should be able to sprint or bend and touch my toes without pulling a muscle, I should be able to wear t-shirts without my belly sticking out.

Another directional goal of mine is earning my autonomy, and another learning new skills.

Alright, so that’s setting direction.

## Step 2

**Snakable tasks**

Now that you know where you want to head directionally, it’s time to set up little tasks, routines, actions that I would take everyday (or as frequently as possible) which in the long term would help you achieve my goal.

Breaking down my health goal into little tasks that I like to call snackable tasks:

* Regular flexibility routines (10-15 mins)
* Go for runs (15-20 mins)
* Fasting till lunch
* Keeping the fridge clear of junk (easier than trying NOT to snack)
* Eat generally healthy meals that are high in protein, good quality fat, and moderate to low in carbs

If I do this for 10 years consistently, good health is inevitably the outcome.

To earn my autonomy, I continue to build out business ideas on the internet. Admittedly I’m only on my first and about to build my second, but in 10 years I imagine either doing really well with my second business or having built a few more in between.

And to keep learning new skills, I get hands on with everything I do. I wasn’t writing React code in production until March of 2020. I hadn’t made vector shapes and a logo until May of 2020. What’s next?

## Bottom line

Goal setting and achieving goals isn’t really difficult.

You could read 100s of articles and guides, apply frameworks etc.

Or you could simply follow my 2-step directional goal setting process.

It’s a really simple machine.

![](https://media.preetamnath.com/post-images/directional-goal-setting-image-1.webp)

If your input (effort) and commitment (quality of effort) are fixed factors, then the outcome is inevitable.

The only variable, is time.

## 💬 Discuss on Twitter

[View this tweet on X](https://twitter.com/i/status/1272578188619780098)

---

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## About Preetam Nath

Preetam Nath is an entrepreneur and indie software builder. He writes about building profitable SaaS businesses while leading a good life, from first-hand experience: he co-founded SuperLemon, a WhatsApp plugin for Shopify stores that grew to $25k MRR, and DelightChat, a customer support product for ecommerce and D2C brands.

His website (https://www.preetamnath.com) publishes his blog on business, life, mental models and building SaaS businesses, along with a Micro-SaaS guide, a Programmatic SEO course, and Google Sheets habit tracker templates.

- Homepage: https://www.preetamnath.com/index.md
- Blog: https://www.preetamnath.com/blog.md
- X/Twitter: https://x.com/hipreetam93
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathpreetam/
- Email: hipreetam93@gmail.com

## Continue Reading

- [Copying](https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/copying.md)
- [A day off](https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/day-off.md)
- [Freedom](https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/freedom.md)
- [Chaos and Order](https://www.preetamnath.com/blog/chaos-and-order.md)

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