I am a big believer in the power of effective goal setting. I’m an even bigger believer in the power of effective goal achieving.

Research has shown that people with true goals and a specific plan for how to achieve their goals are far more likely to achieve success in life, however it is that they define success. They just “do” better in most every area of their lives.

Just to be clear, dreams are great but they are not the same as goals. Goals are written out, with a plan and a timeline for achieving them. If you’re going to write out your goals and NOT make a specific plan for how to achieve them…. well, there’s really no reason to write them out, they are more of a dream than a goal.

Goals, as helpful as they are however do not guarantee success. They can actually even limit our success. Within the past two weeks I’ve had a couple of high performing salespeople tell me they were way ahead of their plan. They were going to make their year “easy.”

They would be able to coast thorough their selling season and still make their year. The heart of their selling season hadn’t actually started yet and they were thinking coast mode already. That’s not good.

Maybe their goals were set too low in the first place, maybe they happened upon an expected sales windfall, maybe they just worked their butt off early in their year. But how they got so far ahead of their plan is irrelevant, their goal has become a limiter of their success.

Sometimes when we reach a goal we give ourselves the mistaken idea that we are somehow done, complete, finished, mission accomplished.

I’m all for taking a breath and relaxing a bit upon the achievement of a hard earned goal. But don’t just quit, don’t stop working, don’t stop improving. Set some new goals.

Your goals, true goals anyway, should be alive, they should grow and change with the circumstances of your life. My long-range goals are different than they were just a couple of years ago and even short-term goals should be adjusted if your situation warrants it.

Goals are intended to push us forward, to inspire and encourage us. Never let an achieved goal prevent you from achieving even more. Successful people continue trying to be even more successful, they continue to challenge themselves with ever more difficult goals.

The achievement of one goal should be the first step in the setting of another. Keep goals in front of you and and you’ll keep your success there too!