It’s Time To Set Your Goals.

What is success?

It is the deliberate accomplishment of worthy goals over a specified time frame.

Success, therefore, begins with goals and goals define success.

Successful people are driven by goals and they take massive and ever-improving action to achieve them.

Goal setting compels them to go further and faster in life.  It helps them to focus and channel all their resources in the right direction.

Goal setting is the key to managing life and the logical fulfilling approach to dynamic living.

How To Set And Achieve Your Goals

Step 1:  Define Your 3Cs Goals

Goal setting begins with the choice of worthy goals. Goals that help you serve a high calling and for a worthwhile cause.

The following are the 3Cs of worthy goals:

Goals must be clear.

A goal that is clear and well defined is already half achieved. With clarity, you will have a greater sense of strength, control and direction.

Goals should be specific. Eg. Do not, for example, say you wish to make a lot of money. State, specifically, how much money you plan to earn.

It should be in a written format. This is in line with an Oriental proverb which says that “The palest ink is more enduring than the strongest memory.’

Preferably, you should be able to carry it in your wallet so that you can review it regularly.

Your goals must be expressed in terms of measurable results. In that way, you can monitor your progress and adjust accordingly.

Goals should be challenging

Douglas Edwards, a pioneer in sales training commented, “If you don’t believe you can achieve the goal, you won’t pay the full price for it.”

Besides being achievable, goals should be inspirational and motivational. It should challenge you, stretch you, and bring out the best in you.

Goal setting will become a meaningless exercise if you cannot give it your total commitment. It will not drive you to take action if you are not passionate about it and you don’t have faith that your goals will come to pass.

Goals should be controllable.

Achievement of your goals depends on the intensity of desire to turn it into a reality and your desire depends on how easy it is to recall your goals.

You should make its point to remember it at all times even if you do not refer to the written plan.

In addition, you should be able to map the goals on to a schedule with a specific time frame for achieving the appropriate activities, key performance indicators (KPIs), and sub-goals.

Step 2:  Develop Sub-Goals

The Chinese have a saying, “The journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step.” And, if I may add, and then one more step… and then one more step… until you achieve your goal.

By developing sub-goals, it will also help you monitor your progress and ensure you are moving in the right direction. Eg. By the first week, I must do… By the first month, I must achieve…

Step 3:  Determine A Compelling Purpose

To achieve your goals, you must have compelling reasons to do it. If you do not know the ‘Why’s for achieving your goals, you will never find out the ‘How’s.

Your purpose will drive your performance and pursuits.

The compelling purpose must be vital, passionate, and sustainable.

These qualities will cause you to jump out of bed every morning to work hard and smart to achieve your goals.

Step 4:  Prepare Yourself

Barriers.

To succeed, you need to know why you may fail. You need to know what will prevent you from achieving your goals and take every possible action to overcome them.

Your barriers may be related to people, things, yourself, situation, or even something intangible like a bad experience in the past. Eg. bad habits, procrastination, fear of failure etc.

Price.

Success comes with a price. You must make sacrifices, discipline yourself, and persevere through the long, narrow, and winding path towards success.

When you persist, the price will become an enjoyable part of a satisfying and fulfilled life.

Remember, in the future, you will look back and either experience the joy of relentless pursuit or the pain of endless regret.

Take action now, eg. Give up eating unhealthy food, stop negative activities, end toxic relationships etc.

Step 5:  Craft Strategies

You need to constantly ask yourself, “How can I achieve my goals?”

Explore all options by answering questions that begin with why, what, where, who, when, and how.

You have to evaluate the resources that you have; for example, your time, money, and energy, and decide how best to deploy them to achieve your goals.

Decide what you have to do every single day to achieve your goals. What kind of a lifestyle you need to have so as to achieve your goals.

In addition, determine how you can leverage on systems, technologies, people, tools, and other resources to achieve more and better results.

You should not only take the right action but also take these action correctly.

The best way to learn and improve is to teach others.

Share your goal-setting journey with like-minded people. Help them to duplicate and improve on your success and achieve even better results.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

You need to set appropriate KPIs that will help you chart your progress, take corrective action, and help you improve yourself. Eg. How much weight loss, read how many books, train how many people, etc.

You must continue to take every action to learn and improve your knowledge, attitude, skills, and habits (KASH).

You need to make time time to role play and practice your skills. Solicit 360-degree feedback from competent and caring parties to help you improve and achieve your goals.

Step 6:  Motivate Yourself

A lot of goals live and die shortly after they have been set.

For goals to be achieved, it must be driven by a growing desire and this desire must be kept alive and burning until the goals are achieved.

Goals must become a vital, integral, and desired part of your life.

Goals must be constantly visualised using all five senses. The clearer you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel how joyful and rewarding it is to achieve your goals, the faster it will be achieved.

Use aids; including pictures, photographs, and words placed in strategic locations, to remind you of your goals.

You can also record what it means to achieve your goals and play it back to yourself regularly so as to stay motivated.

Request positive people to help you stay motivated in achieving your goals. Avoid ‘energy vampires’ who will suck your energy, distract you, and keep you away from achieving your goals.

Adopt successful people as your mentors. Like they say, “You cannot fly with eagles if you mix with turkeys.”  I

nteract with these top performers, learn from them, and model after their positive action.

Communicate your goals daily through SMSes, Emails, social media,
and telephone calls to people who will be able to give you positive encouragement, feedback, and other forms of value-additions.

Surround yourself with a team of goals-driven performers. You can synergise with and leverage on them to achieve better results.

You should also reward yourself when you reach every sub-goal. By celebrating your achievement, it will motivate you to set more and better goals.

Success breeds success. It will spur you to do more for your life.

Step 7:  Take Action

After you have planned for the activities to reach your goals, you must act.

You must master the courage and commit yourself totally to your goals.  Remove all fears, uncertainties, and doubts that will hold you back.

Continue to strategise and take massive action to turn your goals into a reality.

If you have been reading my Love Notes, you’ll know that I call this process, ‘Go4It!’

You must take the first step and then be prepared to take the next better step.

Do not be sidetracked until you have completed your action plan and achieve your goal.

James Russel Lowell, a famous poet once wrote, ‘All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than one single lovely action.’

Remember, if you keep doing the same thing, you will always get the same results.

Therefore, you must apply purposeful and never ending improvements to take yourself to a higher level of success.

Successful people always do the things ordinary people do not do and do not do the things ordinary people do.

In the words of Paul Myer, ‘Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass.’

Continue to review and improve on your plan on a daily basis.

Please make goal setting an integral part of your life.

Go4It!