A New Way to Set Goals
6 September 2011
Everyone talks a lot about goals in business. It comes into your business plan, your strategies and how you deal with each new opportunity in your company. But so many of us really don’t know what we want so it becomes hard to set goals.
I always love talking to my clients about their goals and their dreams. Sometimes people have forgotten what their original dream was when they started their business but some people really do shoot for the stars – which is great.
Sometimes it’s great to look at things from a new perspective so that we can actually use these strategies in a way that’s best for us.
How about thinking about what would your perfect day be like? For lots of us it would be a day off, doing something fun or spending time with someone special.
Then think about what would your perfect week be like if money was no object? Then your perfect month, then your perfect year. Suddenly what you want from that year changes. Few of us would actually want to spend the year lazing around. Personally I like having challenges and targets in my work – you may want something different.
I found that changing my goals from a list of wants – like a certain car or a certain house – to how I wanted things to be meant that everything else fell into place. Rather than writing down goals that really don’t motivate me because what I care about is feeling like I’ve helped people or made some difference, I now have standards and set markers for myself.
We’ve all heard that writing down your goals means they’re more likely to become a reality. They even tested the theory and tracked Harvard Graduates over their lifetime and proved it to be true. And yet still many people set goals and write them down, but don’t achieve them.
So take some time to answer the following questions to really pin down your long term goals:
How much do you need to earn?
How much do you want to earn?
Where do you want to live?
In what kind of house or home?
Who do you want to share that home with?
Will you have a garden?
Will you have a family?
How will you spend your free time?
How much free time will you have?
If you had the financial freedom to do so, how would you give back to the community?
The big thing that makes a goal motivating for you is the ‘why’ behind it. We don’t really want money, we want what it can buy. We don’t really want a business, we want the freedom and the control it can give us.
So think about why you want what you want, and can you enjoy the journey there. If you’re setting new years resolutions this year, how about making it a year of superb successes and leaps forward?
