Do you have dreams of reaching a million website hits in the next year or launching a brand-new product by the end of the quarter? You might have a stretch goal – and even though it might seem like an impossible feat, you know it can improve your work performance just to have it in the back of your mind.

Mike Fata, award-winning entrepreneur, growth coach, and author of Grow: 12 Unconventional Lessons for Becoming an Unstoppable Entrepreneur, lays out what stretch goals are, why they’re important, and how to achieve them. Read more, below.

What are stretch goals?

A stretch goal is a somewhat unrealistic milestone that you have to try hard to achieve – it’s challenging and painstaking but ultimately extremely rewarding if that milestone (or something close to it) is met. You might not think you can reach your stretch goal, and it might take a whole lot of work. But with your team by your side and a great goal management software to help, these goals that seem unattainable can turn into an inspiring setting to fuel the rest of your everyday work.

Why are they important?

It’s a good idea to have at least one of these high-effort high-risk goals, whether you’re batting around the idea in a meeting or you’re seriously putting it on your visions board – and here’s why.

1. They fit the mission

Stretch goals shouldn’t just be lofty ideals made out of impossible dreams. If done right, they’re an excellent opportunity to connect with something beyond yourself and allow you to grow your company from within.

They should ultimately fit in with your company’s larger mission, so you won’t be stretching in a direction that’s inorganic for your team. They should also be authentic to your personal mission, as you can’t stretch in a way that your body and mind simply don’t go, lest you want to set yourself up for failure.

2. They encourage innovation

If your stretch goals include working harder but not smarter, you might not be getting the most out of the experience. The right stretch goals can spur creativity, increase problem-solving abilities, and develop skills required to work through adversity.

Having aspirations that require new ways of thinking can be incredible learning experiences, so if you’re going to make a stretch goal, be sure that it’s more about trying something new than it is about working harder at something you’ve already been doing.

3. They enhance productivity

Another great thing about stretch goals is that they fuel productivity under the right circumstances. If you have this new and exciting reason to wake up in the morning, even the tasks that seemed monotonous before can become invigorated with a new sense of passion and exhilaration.

A report from the Harvard Business Review shows that these somewhat difficult goals cause a release of beneficial neurochemicals such as adrenaline or norepinephrine, both chemicals that can stimulate excitement and motivation.

How do you achieve stretch goals?

Yes, stretch goals are indeed achievable (and even if they aren’t, you’re achieving something along the way). Reframing your mindset about what success is can ensure that if you don’t reach these lofty goals, you’ll still feel proud and confident about what you accomplished along the way.

Many prefer to organize stretch goals within the SMART framework, ensuring that their goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. But the option is always there to create goals based upon a looser sense of what your company needs and keep these aspirations nebulously omnipresent to encourage positivity.

If you’re looking to keep your eye on the prize, however, you need to make sure that you’re a little more disciplined about the way you tackle your stretch goals. One of the best ways to reach your stretch goals is to make sure that you’re working towards them as efficiently and practically as possible. In addition to using a goal-tracking tool, consider using some of the many popular productivity applications to ensure you’re using your time wisely as you bring your stretch goal vision to life.

3 Tips for setting stretch goals

1. Specialize

It’s vital that your stretch goals should be personalized for your team and that you focus on crafting these ideas based upon the skills you each have. A report from Business Matters notes that in recent research, stretch goals are found to work mainly because they spur on the contribution of new ideas.

If your stretch goal isn’t directly related to the culture and talents of your team, you might have a flurry of new ideas that are disjointed and perhaps uninformed. But if you stay in your lane and focus on your strengths, you can use stretch goals to get better at the things you already do.

2. Keep it real

Being honest with yourself and your team is another key to creating the perfect stretch goal. To keep it real, many companies don’t end up accomplishing their stretch goals, and some researchers believe that the jury is still out on whether or not they’re beneficial for team building. In truth, making an impossible stretch goal will just make employees feel disappointed and apathetic.

Studies show that if you keep impossible stretch goals based on production, the quality of an employee’s work might decrease just so their quantity can go up. Stretch goals are the most effective with focused employees who have a good sense of their own limits.

3. Remember the big picture

Your stretch goals should reach all the way into your company’s mission. This could include something like a project that involves upper management or an internal project for a fundraiser, something that’s hard to accomplish or coordinate but would yield a remarkable outcome. Just make sure that whatever you’re planning, it’s more about the company’s mission than your own personal mission.

While stretch goals can be personal, and you can aspire to run a 5K or write your first novel outside the workplace, working with a team is about considering things outside yourself. When creating stretch goals with your team, remember to adjust the objective to account for their input and participation – because their skills can ultimately complement yours.

6 Examples of amazing stretch goals for your team

For those looking to experiment with new stretch goals, here are a few examples to spark inspiration.

1. “Increasing sales by a specific percentage over the previous year while maintaining customer satisfaction ratings.”

A stretch goal like this is a great option because it includes very specific numbers, a strict timeline, and parameters for how success should be measured. A comparable stretch goal like “using sales automation to double revenue in a year without a clear plan or additional resources,” Fata says, might seem like the same thing – and maybe something you’ve heard before at a company-wide meeting. But ultimately, it’s too vague; there are no ways to measure quality over quantity, and the aspiration to double sales is just too unachievable.

“Goals should be tailored to the company’s resources and strategic objectives and should be achievable with the right support and resources,” Fata adds.

2. “Developing and launching a new product or service that meets a specific need in the market.”

Next, Fata says, this stretch goal is a great alternative to a stretch goal that involves “releasing a new product in half the time originally estimated, without considering the impact on quality.” In situations like this, Fata says, “it’s important to consider the specific needs and capabilities of the company and its employees” – otherwise, the available resources won’t be able to meet the anticipated market need.

When it comes to pivoting stretch goals if resources change, Hive Goals is a great tool to measure pace, track which items are lagging, and which goals are “at-risk.”

3. “Expanding the company’s market share in a particular region or demographic group.”

Fata also recommends a stretch goal that attempts to break into something new. However, teams shouldn’t go into their stretch goals blind, especially if it involves trying to get the attention of a new customer base. Research and development, Fata says, is key to making a goal like this succeed.

“Implementing a new innovation, technology or process without adequate testing or training results in decreased productivity or quality.”

4. “Achieving a specific sustainability or social responsibility goal, such as reducing waste or increasing diversity and inclusion.”

There’s nothing more that employees (especially younger employees) want from their companies than being included in a critical mission that makes them feel like they’re contributing to the common good. That being said, making arbitrary or nebulous goals that focus on “justice” or “equality” without coming up with a distinct definition of those goals can create problems.

“[You can’t] eliminate a longstanding problem or issue without a clear understanding of the root cause or the resources required to address it,” Fata says. “Regular evaluation and adjustment of goals may be necessary to ensure that they remain achievable and relevant.”

5. “Improving employee engagement and retention rates by a certain percentage through targeted training, mentoring, or other initiatives.”

Lastly, Fata adds, a stretch goal that involves employee engagement should be considerate of an employee’s time and energy.

“Don’t try to increase employee productivity by a certain percentage without taking into account workload or work-life balance,” Fata says. “It’s also important to communicate clearly with employees about the goals, and to involve them in the goal-setting process.”

6. “You can mark off a win if you try out a new habit for an hour, and add up those million little wins over a lifetime.”

Fata’s advice of introducing small challenges with consistency can be applied as a strech goal to your team. Setting a time-management stretch goal to your team can boost productivity and transform your company’s overall performance. What if you could implement a new habit or tool that would help your team to reduce the time spent on non-essential tasks by 50%? Would they have more opportunities to focus on high-productivity activities? Pro-tip: Hive time-tracking feature can help you to evaluate which tasks are consuming more time from your team but that could be automated, reframed or completely eliminated.

How can you avoid the stretch goal paradox?

The “stretch goal paradox” is, in essence, a reflection about how difficult setting effective stretch goals in fact is. Setting stretch goals depends on several things, such as: having already a high performing and motivated team and offering your team the necessary resources to achieve their stretch goals.

If your team members are unmotivated and burned out they will not perform well or stretch themselves to achieve more. The irony of the “stretch goals paradox” is that  organizations struggling to survive often turn to them in a last-ditch effort, while those who could thrive with them rarely adopt them. This mismatch is the heart of the “stretch goal paradox”.

Using Hive To Set Your Goals

Are you ready to start making strategic goals with your team? You’re in luck — Hive’s newest (and most exciting) feature is Goals. Everyone wants to know how they’re moving their organization forward, and your team is more than just a project. With Goals, you can set various goals, visualize progress, and keep everyone aligned in one centralized dashboard. You can also:

• Create one, ten, twenty, or more goals for your team, so everyone understands what they’re contributing to.
• Centralize and automate your goal tracking and reporting.
• Pull data from other systems into Hive to streamline operations and reporting.
• Share your goal or goals, assign the goal to relevant teammates, track activity, and give yourselves a deadline.
• Understand how your team and organization are pacing towards an individual goal or a set of goals.
• Color-coded designations allow an easy understanding of “on-track” items.
• When it’s time to review progress, accomplishments, and achievements, easily export all relevant information.

Want to get started? Start your free trial of Hive Goals today!