Goal Setting 101

“The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”
- Cecil B. DeMille

If you have had any success at all in business, you’re probably no stranger to goal setting. In order to get anywhere in life, we must have a vision of where we want to be. So we must take the time to think about exactly what it is we want to do rather than just jumping at any opportunity that comes our way.

Some entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs because they want to make a living doing something specific. Maybe they’ve always dreamed of owning a clothing boutique or running a landscaping business. They have a fairly easy time setting goals when they’re starting out. For those who want to be their own boss but have a less concrete idea of what they want to do, it’s a little more difficult. But they too learn that having goals is crucial to initial success.

Still, many entrepreneurs do not have a good handle on goal setting. Once they set their initial goal of running a certain type of business, they may quit setting goals. This is detrimental to their success, because they no longer have anything to work toward. They’re just staying afloat. Staying afloat is better than sinking, but wouldn’t it be even better to move forward?

The act of setting goals doesn’t guarantee success. But when done properly, it does provide a tangible target to work toward. Here are some tips for setting goals that are challenging yet attainable and effective.

Avoid Vagueness

Many of us have goals that are just too vague. Some business owners set goals such as:

• Stay profitable.
• Get more clients.
• Make more sales than last year.

These goals are better than none at all, but they are entirely too general. If your goal is to stay profitable, you can accomplish that by making $1 in profits each year. But is that the kind of progress you really want to make?

Making more sales than last year is a little better. This at least gives you a semblance of a goal to work with, because you have your sales figures from last year. But again, if you make $1 more in sales than you did last year, you’ve achieved your goal. If you set the same goal next year, you can achieve it by making one more dollar in sales. You could eventually be operating at a loss because of inflation!

In order for goals to be the most effective, they must be concrete. Instead of setting a goal of increasing sales over last year, come up with a percentage or dollar figure to aim for. This will help motivate you and give you a benchmark against which to measure your achievements.

Set Time Limits

In order for a goal to be effective, it’s best to set a time limit for it. Do you want to achieve this goal in a year’s time, in ten years, or by next month?

Indefinite goals have a way of setting us up for procrastination. If we run across an obstacle in reaching them, we’re more inclined to put them off until a more convenient time. And quite often, we keep putting them off until we either lose hope or forget about them.

A goal with a time limit puts us under pressure. We may not like the sound of that, but it’s actually a good thing. If we set a goal that must be met in a certain time frame, we are more likely to work as hard as is necessary to achieve it by then. We may or may not make it, but we give it our best shot.

Break It Down

It’s important to have both short-term and long-term goals in business. The short-term goals give us smaller victories that keep us motivated, and the long-term goals ensure that we have something to continually work toward.

Each long-term goal should be broken down into smaller short-term goals. For example, you might want to make $1 million in sales this year. That’s a good goal, but if you don’t give it any further thought, it’s hard to keep progress on how you’re doing. So try working out how much you’ll need to sell each month. $1 million divided by 12 gives you a goal of $83,333 per month.

This technique can also help you determine whether or not a goal is attainable. For instance, if you’re a service provider, you might want to make $1 million this year. If you get paid $100 for each billable hour, you would need to work 10,000 hours this year, or about 192 hours a week. Since there are only 168 hours in a week (and you can’t work nearly that many), you’ll either have to find a way to make more per hour, get some passive income going, or revise your goal.

Put Your Goals in Writing

One thing that is very important when setting goals is writing them down. It sounds very basic, but you’d be surprised at how many people fail to do this.

If you set goals but don’t write them down, it’s harder to stick to them. They might be in the back of your mind at all times, but they’re not staring you in the face like they would if they were on paper. Writing your goals down in a conspicuous place forces you to revisit them from time to time, providing motivation and a sense of accountability.

In addition to writing down your goals themselves, try writing notes about your progress toward them. Whether it’s in a notebook or on a dry-erase board for everyone to see, it will help you evaluate your results. This will give you insight into what you might have done differently to achieve a better outcome and aid in future goal setting.

Goal Setting Is an Ongoing Process

“We find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.”
- Maxwell Maltz

No matter what stage of business you’re in, goal setting is crucial to your success. It helps you channel your motivation and keep a forward-looking attitude.

When you reach a goal, it is certainly cause for celebration. But it’s also an occasion to work on new goals. By always having something to work toward, you can keep that momentum going.

Rate Article

Related Videos
Play Video Goal Setting Tips - Part 11	Play Video Goal Setting Tips - Part 10	Play Video Goal Setting Tips - Part 9	Play Video Goal Setting Tips - Part 8	Play Video Goal Setting Tips - Part 7

Listed below are more articles related to the above article from the "Goal Setting" article category.

People interested in the above article "Goal Setting 101" are also interested in the related articles listed below:

 

Stay Motivated Toward Your Goals with 3 Tips

It's not always easy to stay motivated when you're trying to achieve a goal. Some experts say that the "goal" itself should be enough to inspire unwavering diligence toward achieving it...and there is an element of truth in that. However, the reality is that the discomforts of striving for a particular goal can sometimes cause us to lose focus.

Seizing Your Goals with 3 Tips

Before you decide whether a single goal fits into your goals program, you should work that goal through a process that can help determine whether you should be pursuing this goal at the current time. This can take considerable time but it can save you much time and frustration by eliminating goals that are not for you at this time and helping to identify what you need to focus on now.

Basics Of Goal Setting

Goal setting is the base of every successful planning and execution, during the last years Goal setting theories and techniques has evolved significantly, mainly because of the internet businesses that changed the traditional concepts of work.

Tips From A Life Coach About Achieving Goals

Goals - we have a love-hate relationship with goals. We love them because they are such a great idea and are a superb way to motivate us to achieve and then to evaluate our progress; but we hate them, because for much of the time, they go unattained and simply frustrate us. This isn't what goals should do!

How To Set Goals And Reach Attainment

I am sure that many of you are deep into the drama and excitement of the holiday season. There is so much to be done and so much to think about and consider that many can hardly think of anything else. However, when the excitement is over, our attention typically turns the closing of one year and the beginning of a new one.

Achieving Your Dreams And Go Beyond Your Goals

As important as goal setting is, goals alone do not ensure that you will achieve the success you desire. A written goal is not some kind of magic talisman whereby whatever you set your heart on manifests in your life out of thin air. That being the case, what is it that makes the difference between a person who achieves their goals and a person who doesn't? The answer can be summarised in a single word: lifestyle. The only difference between those who achieve their goals and those who don't is the way they live each day. Destiny does not determine your lifestyle. Your lifestyle determines your destiny!

Set Group Goals Collaboratively

One of the tasks that come with being a leader is setting goals. Goals for ourselves, to be sure, but often we need set goals for our groups/teams or the larger organization. While we may instinctively know that we should include people in the creation of goals they will be working to achieve, too often the press of time and the lure of expediency leaves leaders setting the goals, and simply sharing them with those charged with achieving them.