#14 Guide to Goal Setting
What is a goal?
If you are reading this you want to get something done. Goal setting will help your business grow and can help you get anything you want out of life. First things first, what is a goal? A goal is a clearly defined task that you can complete. Saying “I want to go to the moon” is not a goal, it's a dream. But you can set goals for yourself that make a trip to the moon a realistic goal. What would that look like? You would ask yourself are there rockets going to the moon soon? Yes. Could you get in the space program? Maybe. How do you get in? Join the airforce as an officer to become a pilot. Can you become a pilot? Maybe. Okay then set a goal go to college, qualify for flight school, join air force. Now you would have a realistic path to the moon. It is no longer a dream but a realistic achievable goal. We aren’t all trying to go to the moon because many of us believe it is either too hard or impossible. If you want to be successful, figure out if you believe that what you are trying to do is both possible and that you are willing to do it. If you aren’t willing to put in the work you will never achieve your goals.
101 Goals
Okay you have a dream, and you have made it into achievable goals now what? Well you should create a list of 101 things you can do this year to get you closer to that goal. For example if you are trying to become a top real estate agent with a goal of earning $1,000,000 a year you might have goals like change your wardrobe, improve posture, create 10 new contacts a day, sell a house every week, learn email marketing. You are not perfect which means that you should be able to find way more than 101 goals for this year. Once you have all your goals written out organize them according to what needs to happen first and by area.
Anti-Goals
If you are having trouble creating goals try making a list of everything that you don’t want to have happen in the next year. You don’t want to lose clients because of your appearance, you don’t want to sound stupid, etc. After creating this list find the opposite and make it a goal to improve in that area of your life.
The Dream
What is your dream? What does your ideal future look like? Where are you, what are you working on, who are you with, and how do you spend your time? Your goals ought to make this future possible. If your goal is to be in Hawaii drinking a cocktail on the beach while your business is running back home then you need to develop goals that make this possible. You need to develop leaders in your company.
Locus of control
Do you have control over your life? Locus of control is a determining factor in whether or not you will ever succeed in business. If you have an external locus of control then you believe that factors outside of yourself determine your level of success. Whether if you have an internal locus of control you believe that your success or failure is determined by the effort that you put in to your work. It is possible to outside factors affect your likelihood of succeeding but this does not mean that you just roll over and give up. It means you actively change the world around you to minimize the things you can't control. Find out if you have an internal or external locus of control here. It is quite possible to change your locus of control to internal you need to learn positive self talk and how to set achievable goals that are within your control.
What’s the bulk?
What is the bulk of your work? What is the one thing that you must do day in and day out that determines your level of success? If you run a business, the answer is probably sales. You need to talk to as many potential customers as possible in order to grow your business. This means that the majority of your goals in this case would evolve around talking to potential customers! If your selling solar door to door you need to talk to more people and improve the quality of conversations. Your goals shouldn’t be to get better at note taking. That might be a goal but that shouldn’t be the goal.
1% better every day
Everyday you should try to get 1% better than you were the day before. You can do this by completing a goal you have or part of a goal. If you do this every day you will be 365% better next year! If you are a runner then you know that you need to run a little bit further every time you run in order to run longer. This past year by following this rule I went from running 1 mile a day to being able to run 21 miles.
Rewards
In order to make goals work for you and not against you need to create a rewards system for yourself. When I started working in door to door sales I had the goal to talk to more people. To incentivise myself I gave myself a skittle every time I talked to a new person. Incentives regardless how small can help you to succeed where it was once impossible.
Deadlines
Proper goal setting requires deadlines. After you have made a list of your 101 goals and put them in order you need to start setting deadlines for the individual goals. Try to get it so that you have a new goal every 1-3 days. You can write out your present goals and put them next to the coffee pot or someplace you will see them every day. I use Google Calendar for everything so I put my goals at the top of my calendar so that I see them everyday. They are bright red. Once they are complete change the color to green -the color I use to represent completed work.
Why?
Find your why. At the end of the day even if you have set all of your goals you need to have a reason why that is compelling so that you will get out there every day and get it done. The reason can’t just be money. It needs to be more compelling. Are you doing these goals for the day that you can sit on the beach? For the financial security that you want? Find your why, find your goals, and get to it!
Consistency
Consistency is key. You must learn to work on your goals every day or you will become complacent and weaker. The weaker you become in consistency the closer you are to failure. There is a saying that the best time to plant a tree was 25 years ago. The next best time is today. Your goals are like trees. They need to grow big and strong for you to receive the reward that you desire.
Final thoughts
We are each in the process of becoming a better or worse person everyday. Why not become a better person now? And as I always say to myself “it is time to buck up” If you would like to learn more about goal setting I suggest reading The Achievement Habit: Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life by Roth, Bernard.
