You’ve Got a Goal– Now What?
You’ve taken the first major step in the goal setting process by outlining your goal. Hopefully you have created a goal that inspires you, that keeps you awake at night, that drives you with every breath that you take. So what comes next?
It’s time to take that goal and break it down into a series of manageable steps. Why is this necessary? Simple—because this goal is probably so fantastic, so amazing, that it is far off, barely visible in the horizon. It’s probably so far off, in fact, that it becomes daunting, almost to the point of being overwhelming.
What’s necessary at this point is to make this goal realistic, and bring it into the “now.” You can do this by outlining the series of steps that it will take for you to get from where you are today to where you want to be at the end of journey.
In other words, you are going to create your very own action plan. There are several important factors to keep in mind when building your plan:
1. Leave No Stone Unturned. Make your plan as detailed as you reasonably can. Set deadlines for the various roadposts in the journey. That being said, don’t go overboard with this part of the exercise by going into too much detail. Outline what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and what you need to complete it. Than move on.
2. Vary Your Plan of Attack. Give yourself as many options as possible to achieve your goal. Have back-up plans, and if you are feeling particularly ambitious, have back-up plans for those. For example, if you were wanting to lose weight, make sure that you have several different fitness regimens, several different diets in plan. When you have an array of options, you give yourself room to maneouver when the inevitable roadblock occurs. Also, by varying your plan of attack, you keep your mind and fresh and interested.
3. Make Sure Your Plan Begins with Something You Can Do Today. Having a goal plan is swell and dandy, but it is meaningless without the will to pursue it. Make the first step of your goal plan something that you can commence today, at this very moment. Doing this will infect you with the habit of taking action, and it will give you momentum into the next crucial few days. And no—just writing out the plan isn’t the first step in your journey. It has to be something that you act on.
4. Make a List of the Resources You Require. This could include money, equipment, a gym membership, some type of special education. You may need so much that it is overwhelming. Don’t be swallowed up by this needless panic; write out a list of exactly what you need, and slowly acquire everything on it.
5. Be Willing to Be Flexible With Your Plan. The fact is that you are constantly evolving as a person. The person we are today is not the same person we were yesterday. Your plan should be the same. It should evolve with you. This isn’t an excuse to give up, or to avoid hard work. Being flexible means that the end remains the same while the means is open to change where necessary.
Are You Making These 5 Critical Goal Setting Mistakes?
The power of goals is immense; it has been the process for many of the most successful people in the world as they traveled the steps of their own journey. But what sets them apart from the lay person, who goes from un-achieved goal to un-achieved goal, is that they have learned the correct way to go about setting their goals. The most successful people, in any industry, field or occupation, are not making the following mistakes when they decide on a goal. Are you?
1. They phrase it correctly. Did you know that simply the way you say your goal has a huge effect on whether or not you will achieve it? Instead of saying that you want to do something, or that you wish to do something, phrase your goal in the following format: "I choose..." When you say that you want to do something, your brain refers this sentence as a far-off reality, a hope, a dream. Phrase it as "I choose" and your brain is forced to acknowledge that this goal is something you are doing now.
2. They are willing to allow for mistakes and roadblocks. The human brain can be fickle when things go awry; our first instinct is to walk away and drop our plans the moment things start to fall apart. But this is precisely the moment for you to shine. You have to give yourself a chance to adapt and to adjust to your surroundings. When you are drawing up your plan to achieve your goals, allow roadblocks with each of the major steps of your plan.
3. They don't believe in a vague goal. These are typical dream goals: "I want to be rich", "I want to be good-looking" etc. There is no possible way to achieve these goals because they are completely subjective. Nail your goal up against a wall; give it an exact number, date, or figure. "I want be making $125,000 a year by December 2012." "I want to weigh 182 pounds within 12 weeks from now." Once you have that detailed figure, you are forced to come up with a plan to get there! Day-dream about a vague and hazy goal and not only will you never get there, but odds are you won't even get started.
4. They aren't scared to make a plan. This is where most people stop when they create a goal. Making a comprehensive plan should be an exercise in making your goal more realistic, but many goal-setters see all the steps necessary in the achieving of their goal and suddenly they get bashful or overwhelmed by what they see as an intimidating wall of work between them and their goal.
5. They make goals that are challenging, but realistic. It's not uncommon to see people set extravagant goals, go full-bore on them for several days or weeks, and then fail spectacularly. Out of this defeat they get a belief that they aren't good enough, that life isn't fair, that they aren't meant to be successful. The truth lies more in that the goal they set was exceptionally out-of-reach. Whether it's a timeline that is far too short, or expectations of an easier route to their goal, these people dreamed bigger than reality allowed.
Simply by avoiding this list of common errors anyone with a goal worth achieving can significantly increase their chance of success. Spend the necessary time to sit down with your goals, and get to know them. Why are they important to you? What do you hope to get from them? And once you have those answers, and this little list of mistakes, you will find momentum within you to get further down the road to your success.
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The Killer 3-Step Process to Making a Good Goal Great
Everyone has goals, but the difference between those who have mastered goal setting and those who simply wish for their goals to come true comes down to simply how they choose to phrase their goal! But wait, I can hear you saying. How can the way a goal be phrased influence whether or not it is achieved?
Let’s say you have a goal to start your own business. As an example, we are going to say that you are going start a plumbing business.
A typical goal may look like this: “I want to own a plumbing business.”
At first blush, this goal looks good. There’s a willingness to accomplish a stated objective. There is implied desire to achieve it too. But if we look deeper, there are several major flaws with the way this goal stated.
1. This goal lacks a deadline. There is no specific timeline for when it is to be achieved. It could be tomorrow, it could ten years from now. This lack of a deadline insures that there is no urgency or hurry to take action. This is not good! Let’s try it this way instead…
“I want to own a plumbing business by March 2012.”
Now that we have a timeline in place, a reason to begin acting immediately, it’s better. But admittedly, this goal is still kind of vague.
2. This goal is unclear. What kind of plumbing business are we talking about? A one-person operation, or a company with dozens of plumbers and administrative staff? Is it going to be a franchised company, or is it going to be an independent business? Is your company going to focus on commercial plumbing, residential plumbing or service and repair? Let’s try phrasing this goal again, specifying exactly what kind of business it’s going to be.
“I want to own an independently-owned, residential plumbing business by March 2012.”
Now that’s a lot more specific. Nailing down exactly what it is you want to achieve makes it more real in your mind, and that much more likely for you to act on it. We tend to reach for things we can actually grasp and visualize in our minds, compared to hazy and unclear thoughts.
This still isn’t the best it could be. There’s one more thing we need to do this goal to make it truly solid and worthy.
3. “I choose…” When goals are phrased with the terms “I want/wish/hope…” you are turning your goal into a fantasy, a dream. It’s wanting and panting for something you don’t have. It’s a helpless and defeatist method of phrasing your goals.
“I want” stinks of future plans that you may or may not get to. It’s coated with a “I’ll start tomorrow” attitude. “I am/choose” presupposes that you already are acting in according to the belief or goal.
The difference is immeasurable. “I choose” means you are already in the act of achieving your goal, not on the outside looking in. “I choose” assumes that you have already achieved this goal, and that it is merely a matter of steps and time before you accomplish it!
Let’s tidy this up:
“I choose to own an independently-owned, residential plumbing business by March 2012.”
Now that is a goal! Learning how to properly write out your goal is just the first step in mastering the goal setting process. Learn how to complete the journey with your own customized goal setting plan.
The 6 Essential Rules for High-Performance Goal Setting
Do you know the six pillars of goal setting? Have you been goal setting without knowing these fundamental and essential rules for setting goals?
If you want to become a super-charged goal-setter, there are some basics you must master. No matter where you are in your life, or where you are in your own personal goal setting process, it’s vital that you understand the nuts-and-bolts of goal setting.
- Create Positive Goals. Avoid “I don’t want…” goals. In sports terms, this is playing not to lose, when you should be playing to win. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s significant. Instead of panicking and growing anxious that you won’t be able to do something, you focus on doing. If you want to avoid being poor, change your goal to wanting to be wealthy.
- Be Passionate about Your Goal. Does this goal keep you up at night? This goal should be something that you are so interested in that you are willing to invest significant time and resources into achieving it. Unless you care deeply about what it is you want to achieve, you will quickly lose interest and your dream will fall to the wayside.
- Write Your Goal Down. Doing so will pull that goal out of your head, out of your dreams, and make it a little more real. Just looking at it, reading it over to yourself should give you little butterflies. It’ll paint that picture in your mind of what your life will look like once you achieve it, and this is a very powerful motivational tool.
- Slice Your Goal into Manageable Chunks that You Can Tackle Now. Now that you have your lofty goal, you might be thinking, “Well, that’s great that I want to achieve this. But how the heck am I going to get there?” This is where your goal plan comes into play. Take your goal and methodically break it down into doable pieces and segments. One client I work with came back with a 28 page plan after I asked her to do this exercise! While this may be a little much for most people, you should be able to break your major goal into a series of at least a dozen smaller goals or steps.
- The First Step of Your Goal Plan is Something You Can Start Today. Do not wait for tomorrow. Can you look yourself in the mirror tomorrow and give yourself an excuse for another day that you wasted away to procrastination? There is nothing tomorrow that you can’t do today. Keep this attitude and you will find yourself acting more often and wasting less and less.
- Commit to It. The most powerful goal plan in the world is useless without the will behind it to act on it. If you find yourself wavering, or beginning to have doubts, go back step two and scrutinize your goal step-by-step.