I don't like to set goals that are restricted by a timeframe. I like to set a goal, meet it, then continue to the next one regardless of the time that it took to get there. Let me explain.
We are in 2016, cool, whatever. Let's say I wanted my channel to hit 10,000 subscribers by the end of the year. It's an achievement and takes work, again cool, whatever. With my goals, I don't want something that quantifies static success, that is what a subscriber number is. With my goals, I want something that quantifies dynamic success in a way that shows "this is the way my channel is, and will continue to always be".
Static success would be where I hit a certain subscriber number or certain total view or watch minute count. While these are most certainly milestones, anyone can hit them using a widely variable amount of time.
Continuous success is not measured by a specific number that happened at a specific moment. It happens all the time. Continuous success would be getting 10 views per hour in the realtime menu. This means that your channel is popular at all hours of the day, all the time. Rather than a single video or an upload lurching your view count forward.
Wow, I like that concept. Off to the text document writer thing to make a video about it.
AWAAAAAAAYYY!