Setting a Goal
Written by Morgan Jones, February 2022
In early 2020 whilst working on my first portfolio collection, MJ SS 20 “Closed Waters”, I went through a phase of listening to as many interviews as I could featuring Marco Pierre White. Before you ask, no, I’m not hugely into cooking. I am, however, fascinated by people who have risen to the top of their field. In listening to these interviews I found a commonality throughout all the stories pertaining to his early career and that was they all centred around a common goal, the goal of earning a Michelin Star.
This got me to thinking, what is my equivalent of a Michelin Star? What does that accolade look like in Fashion? I know I want to be a successful fashion designer, but how am I to know that I am?
It occurred to me that we Fashion Designers do not have a Michelin Star equivalent and we must therefore create our own. We could do this as an industry (I have thoughts on this which I’ll share in another article) or we could create our own personal metrics for success.
I decided to proceed with the latter option. My own personal goal isn’t what I’m here to discuss however, rather, I would like to talk you through the process of goal setting which I used – and still use - in order to hopefully help you in your own practice if indeed you are feeling overwhelmed, uncertain or lacking direction.
My process is as follows:
Step 1: Choose your field and stick to it.
This sounds obvious, but too often we are pulled in multiple directions. Regardless of if you have two interests or a hundred, you simply must choose one to be the ultimate priority. This, is your field.
As someone with multiple interests I have struggled with this decision at times. When I feel like this I think of two things to strengthen my resolve, one is of Sylvia Plath’s Fig Tree in her book The Bell Jar, the other is the simple analogy that it is impossible to push two rocks up a hill simultaneously. Know that life is long despite how short it is and take strides to accomplish a serious accolade definitively rather than several half-heartedly. If down the line you grow truly unhappy in your pursuit, that can be the end of it, and you can change field. Alternatively, you may reach your goal and at that point decide to do something completely different next!
Example: I choose Fashion Design to be my field.
Step 2: Choose your ideal goal
Don’t be afraid at this stage to be as lofty in your ambitions as your imagination allows. Reason and probability shouldn’t factor in here. The only thing that counts is getting in touch with yourself, and really working out what you’d love to have / do / be. Perhaps it’s a position in a brand you love, your own label, financial reward, or reputation. It’s up to you.
Example: I want to have my clothes on the cover of Vogue.
Step #3: Work out how high a priority in your life your practice is.
This step requires you to be very, very, very honest with yourself. Ask yourself the tough questions. There are no right and wrong answers. From the one extreme of, my practice is all that matters to me vs. my practice comes after literally everything else, it’s no one’s business but your own. Listen to your gut.
The temptation here is to either overestimate your dedication to your practice in a bid to reinforce it’s importance because that’s what you perceive you should find important, or otherwise lower it’s importance because you feel to put it, and by essence put your personal desires, above constructed norms of responsibility in other areas of your life is somehow wrong. Again, try your best to be honest with yourself.
Questions to help you navigate this step could be; is my practice more important to me than my personal relationships? Is my practice more important to me than my hobbies? Is my practice more important to me than maximising my earning potential?
Example: My family’s needs come first, then my practice, then fun nights out with friends and then my hobbies.
Step 4: Using this knowledge, work out how much time you are willing to put in
Now that you have an understanding of your priorities, it is possible to look at your day, week, month and year(s) and work out how much time, and by association energy, you are willing to dedicate to your practice.
It may turn out you have 70 hours a week, it may turn out you have 7. I can’t reinforce enough how either is fine as long as you are content. If the hours feel too high you can reduce them. If the hours feel too low, you can increase them. Tweaking and fine tuning is and should be an ongoing part of any process.
Example: I want to put in an hour’s work on my practice every evening during the week after I go to my day job.
Step 5: Close the gap between ideal goal and time in, the result is your true goal
After following steps one through four we now have a good understanding of what field we wish to work in, what our ideal goal in this field would be, how we prioritise our practice, and what we are willing to put into our practice.
We will find ourselves in one of three positions:
Ideal goal is possible with the time in we have dedicated – perfect, crack on!
Ideal goal is not realistic with time in - decrease goal / increase time in
Ideal goal seems too easy with time in – increase goal or add another step to the goal
Using our examples so far of working one hour a day during the week would seem to not be a sufficient amount of effort to secure your clothing on the cover of Vogue. We must now close the gap. We can do this by either increasing our time in / prioritisation or alternatively lowering the height / perceived difficulty in reaching the goal. It can, and I would recommend it should be, a combination of both.
Example continued: I am willing to work an hour every evening during the week and a full day on the weekend (input increased). I would like to see my clothes on the cover of a local publication (difficulty of goal decreased). We have now closed the gap and are ready to get to work.
A good goal should be aspirational and yet realistic. Challenging and yet tangible. I find the biggest advantages to setting a goal are: it gives you direction, it gives you a result to be inspired by and it makes decision making so much easier.
Everyday you now know what you are working towards. Everyday you need not flounder for lack of direction as you have your sights set on something meaningful to you. When decisions come your way you can frame them in terms of how they will serve you in reaching your goal.
You may have more than one goal simultaneously, but only one can be the ultimate priority. For myself, I have my goal within fashion design, and that within writing. I have no hesitation in saying my design work is the priority.
I wish you all the best with your practice and I hope you’ve found this article useful.
Good luck
Morgan