Goal Setting For Success

We’ve all heard about the power of setting goals.

Everyone has surely seen statistics that connect goal setting to success in your business life as well as your personal life. I’m sure if I asked you today what your goals were, you could rattle off a few wants and hopes without giving it too much thought.

However, what most people do not realize is that the power of goal setting lies in writing goals down.

Committing goals to paper and reviewing them regularly gives you a 95% higher chance of achieving your desired outcomes.

Studies have shown that only three to five percent of people in the world have written goals – the same three to five percent who have achieved success in business and earned considerable wealth.

These studies have also found that by retirement, only four percent of people in the world will have enough accumulated wealth to maintain their income level and quality of life.

As a business owner, it is essential that you develop a plan for your retirement.

It is equally essential that you develop a plan for your success.

In this article I will teach you to set SMART goals that are rooted in your own personal value system, and supporting techniques to achieve your goals faster.

What are Goals?

Goals are clear targets that are attached to a specific time frame and action plan; they focus your efforts, and drive your motivation in a clear direction. Goals are different from dreams in that they outline a plan of action, while dreams are a conceptual vision of your wishes or desired outcome.

Goals require work – work on yourself, work for your business, and work for others.

You cannot achieve a goal – no matter how badly you want it – without being prepared to make a considerable effort.

If you are ready to invest your time and energy, goals will help you to:

• Realize a dream or wish for your personal or business life
• Make a change in your life – add positive, or remove negative
• Improve your skills and performance ability
• Start or change a habit – positive or negative

Why Set Goals?

As we’ve already reviewed, setting goals and committing them to paper is the most effective way to cultivate success.

The most important element to setting a goal is to attach a clear action plan to a desired outcome.

Goals help focus our time and energy on one or several key outcomes at a time.

On top of their daily responsibilities, many business owners have hundreds of ideas whirring around their heads at any one time.

By writing down and focusing on a few ideas at a time, you can prioritize and concentrate your efforts, avoid being stretched too thin, and produce greater results.

Since goals attach action to outcomes, goals can help to break down big dreams into manageable (and achievable) sections.

Creating a multi-goal strategy will put a road map in place to help you get to your desired outcome.

If your goal is to start a pizza business and make six figures a year, there are a number of smaller steps to achieve before you reach your end result.

Success doesn’t happen by itself.

It is the result of consistent and committed action by an individual who is driven to achieve something.

Success means something different for everyone, so creating goals is a personal endeavour.

Goals can be large and small, personal and public, financial and spiritual.

It is not the size of the goal that matters; what matters is that you write the goal down and commit to making the effort required to achieve it.

What happens when I achieve a goal?

You should congratulate yourself and your team, of course!

By rewarding yourself and your team after every achievement, you do not only train your mind to associate hard work with reward, but develop loyalty among your employees.

You should also ask yourself if your achievement can be taken to the next level, or if your goal can be stretched by building on the effort you have already made.

Consistently setting new and higher targets will lay the foundation for constant improvement and personal and professional growth.

Power of Positive Thinking

When was the last time you tuned into your internal stream of consciousness?

• What does the stream of thoughts that run through your mind sound like?
• Are they positive?
• Negative?
• Are they logical?
• Reasonable?

Positive thinking and healthy self-talk are the most important business tools you can ever cultivate; by programming a positive stream of subconscious thoughts into your mind, you can control your reality, and ultimately your goals.

Think about someone you know that is constantly negative; someone who complains and whines and makes excuses for their unhappiness.

How successful are they?

How do their fears and doubts become reality in their world?

You are what you continuously believe about yourself and your environment.

If you focus your mind on something in your mental world, it will nearly always manifest as reality in your physical world.

Positive thinking is a key part of setting goals.

You won’t achieve your goal until you believe that you can.

You will achieve your goals faster when you believe in yourself and the people around you who are helping to make your goal a reality.

Successful people are rooted in a strong belief system – belief in themselves, belief in the work they are doing, and belief in the people around them.

They are motivated to improve and learn, but are also confident in their existing skills and knowledge.

Their positive attitude and energy are clearly felt in everything they do.

Ever notice how complainers usually surround themselves with other complainers?

The same is true of positive thinkers.

If you cultivate an upbeat and positive attitude, you will be surrounded by people who share your values and outlook on life.

Too often people and our society subscribe to a continuous stream of negative chatter.

The more you hear it, the more you’ll believe it.

How many times have you heard:

• That’s impossible.
• Don’t even bother.
• It’s already been done.
• We tried that, and it didn’t work.
• You’re too young.
• You’re too old.
• You’ll never get there.
• You’ll never get that done.
• You can’t do that.

Positive thinking and positive influences will provide the support you need to achieve your goals.

Choose your friends and close colleagues wisely, and surround yourself with positive thinkers.

Creating SMART Goals

SMART goals are just that: smart.

Whether you are setting goals for your personal life, your business, or with your employees, goals that have been developed with the SMART principle have a higher probability of being achieved.

The SMART Principle

1. Specific

Specific goals are clearer and easier to achieve than nonspecific goals.

When writing down your goal, ask yourself the five “W” questions to narrow in on what exactly you are aiming for.

• Who?
• Where?
• What?
• When?
• Why?

For example, instead of a nonspecific goal like, “get in shape for the summer,” a specific goal would be, “go to the gym three times a week and eat twice as many vegetables.”

 2. Measurable

If you can’t measure your goal, how will you know when you’ve achieved it?

Measurable goals help you clearly see where you are, and where you want to be.

You can see change come about as it happens.

Measurable goals can also be broken down and managed in smaller pieces.

They make it easier to create an action plan or identify the steps required to achieve your goal.

You can track your progress, revise your plan, and celebrate each small achievement.

For example, instead of aiming to increase revenue in 2015, you can set out to increase revenue by 30% in the next 12 months, and celebrate each 10% along the way.

3. Achievable

Goals that are achievable have a higher probability of being realized.

While it is important to think big, and dream big, people too often set goals that are simply beyond their capabilities and wind up disappointed.

Goals can stretch you, but they should always be feasible to maintain your motivation and commitment.

For example, if you want to complete your first marathon within the next 60 days, but you’ve never run a kilometre in your life, you would be setting a goal that was beyond your current capabilities.

If you decided instead to train for a ten kilometre race in six months, you would be setting an achievable goal.

4. Relevant

Relevant – or realistic – goals are goals that have a logical place in your life or your overall business strategy.

The goal’s action plan can be reasonably integrated into your life, with a realistic amount of effort.

For example, if your goal is to train to climb to base camp at Mount Everest within one year and you’re about to launch a start-up business, you may need to question the relevance of your goal in the context of your current commitments.

5. Timely

It is essential for every goal to be attached to a time-frame, otherwise it simply remains a dream.

Check in to make sure that your time-frame is realistic – not too short or too long.

This will keep you motivated and committed to your action plan, and allow you to track your progress.

Autosuggestion + Visualization

Autosuggestion and visualization are two techniques that can assist you in achieving your goals.

Some of the most well-known and successful people in the world use these techniques, and it is no coincidence that they are masters in their own fields of business and sport.

A few of these people include:

• Michael Phelps (Olympic Swimmer)
• Andre Agassi (Tennis)
• Donald Trump (Real Estate)
• Wayne Gretzky (Hockey)
• Bill Gates (Microsoft)
• Walt Disney (Entertainment)

Of course, each of these people has a high degree of talent, ambition, intelligence and drive.

However, to reach the top of their respective field, they have each used Autosuggestion and Visualization.

Autosuggestion

Autosuggestion is your internal dialogue; the constant stream of thoughts and comments that flows through your mind, and impacts what you think about yourself and how you perceive situations.

Since you were a small child, this self-talk has been influenced by your experiences and has programmed your mind to think and react in certain ways.

The good news is that you can reprogram your mind and customize your self-talk any way you like.

That is the power of Autosuggestion.

To begin practicing Autosuggestion, make sure you are relaxed and open to trying the technique; an ideal time is just before bed, or when you have some time to sit quietly.

Then, repeat positive affirmations to yourself about the ideal outcome.

Top sports and businesspeople will often practice this just before a big game or meeting.

Some examples of positive self talk or autosuggestion include:

• I will lead my team to a victory tonight!
• I will be relaxed and open to meeting new people at the party tonight!
• I will deliver a clear and impacting speech!
• I will stop worrying and tackle this problem tomorrow!
• I will stand up for my own ideas in the meeting!
• I will remember everything I have studied for the test tomorrow!

Visualization

Visualization is a complementary practice to Autosuggestion.

While you can repeat affirmations to yourself over and over, combining this practice with visualization is twice as powerful.

Visualization is exactly what it sounds like: repeatedly visualizing how something is going to happen in your mind’s eye.

Nearly everyone in sports practices this technique.

It has been proven to enhance performance better than practice alone.

This technique can easily be applied to business.

For example, prior to any presentation or meeting where you must speak, present or “perform,” you can visualize yourself being incredibly productive and effective in your office.

Or, having a discussion with your spouse calmly and rationally.

Elements to think about during visualization:

• what does the room look like?
• what do the people in the room look like?
• what is their mood? how do they receive me?
• what image do I project?
• how do I look?
• how do I behave? what is my attitude?
• what is the outcome?

Quick Review

Goals are clear targets that are attached to a specific time frame and action plan; they focus your efforts, and drive your motivation in a clear direction.

They help focus our time and energy on one or several key outcomes at a time.

Goals are different from dreams in that they outline a plan of action, while dreams are a conceptual vision of your wish or desired outcome.

Goals are more effective when you commit them to paper.

It is not the size of the goal that matters; what matters is that you write the goal down and commit to making the effort required to achieve it.

SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely.

Real Live Example:

A year ago I set a Goal to invest less than R25,000.00 and to turn that investment into more than R1.3 million rand in less than a year by applying the Wealth Creators Strategy™

The results are:

• Total investment: R34.83
• Current Investment Value: R1,337,869.77
• Days to reach this GOAL: 351 days

So let’s quickly check the Smart Goals criteria:

• Specific,
• Measurable,
• Achievable,
• Relevant and
• Timely

I achieved this goal because I could click all the check boxes before I actually set the Goal.

So what is your SMART GOAL for the next 7 days?

Here is an easy challenge: (or maybe not that easy)

Why don’t you set yourself a GOAL to do my FREE How To Turn R34.83 Into R1.3 Million Video course?

Set yourself the goal to complete the full course within the next 7 days.

There are 5 modules – so it is less than one module per day.

Are you up to the challenge?

For more information go to: http://makeamillionchallenge.kajabi.com/sp/30779-free-online-course

Please use the comment section to share some of your SMART goals with us.