Tag Goal Setting

When Goals Matter – Part Five

Steve Keating 1 Comment

I’ve asked hundreds of salespeople through the years about their goals for an upcoming year and a common answer is “I’m going to sell more.” When I ask how they are going to do that the most common answer is, “I’m going to work harder.” 

 

I know that neither is likely to happen, not because they don’t want them to but wanting to sell more and pledging to work harder are not goals. At best they are hopes. At worst they are just lies we tell ourselves so we can more convincingly tell them to our bosses later.

 

They aren’t goals because they lack most if not all of the elements of the SMART method of goal setting. But most of all they completely lack specificity. Sell more? Wow, what salesperson doesn’t want to sell more? 

 

The obvious question is how much more but even that answer would be missing the specificity to truly be considered a goal.

 

At the end of this post you’ll see an example of a goal-setting form designed to promote the type of specificity required to set true goals. 

 

Pay close attention to every area. Your deadline to accomplish the goal is critical but so is the start date. Successful people know that “someday” is not a start date and neither is tomorrow. Write down the date and even the time of day on that date that you will begin. That’s specificity! 

 

When thinking about the investment you’re willing to make to achieve your goals think in terms of more than mere money. What amount of time are you willing to invest to achieve these goals, money is often the easy part. Time is usually harder to come by, that’s why I stressed “stop goals” earlier in this series. When considering the challenges you’ll face and how you will overcome them think also about who will help you. 

 

It’s not a weakness to ask for help and it’s not a bad idea to have that help lined up before you need it. 

 

Lastly, how will you know when you have achieved your goal? Is it really measurable? You absolutely have to be honest with yourself here or the whole goal-setting process is worthless. So be honest! 

 

Don’t forget to spell out what your first step will be. Starting is very often the hardest part of all. Once you get going you have the opportunity to build a little momentum. There’s nothing wrong with starting small, a little momentum is far better than none at all. So get going! 

 

Never ever forget, these are your goals. Pay no attention to the negative people who may just be afraid of your possible success. Listen to those who have your best interest in mind but always make your own decisions. 

 

Decide today that you will be unstoppable in pursuit of your goals and you will not be stopped. You will achieve the life you want and you’ll do it your way. I’d call that a pretty good definition of success! 

 

So, here’s the very simple form to guide yourself towards achieving the life you want:

 

 

 

Using the SMART formula, determine the goals that will help you reach your Vision/Mission.

 

Goal #1   Long-term   Intermediate   Short-term   (circle one)

 

 

Deadline to accomplish:

 

 

Start Date:

 

 

Investment I’m willing to make:

 

 

What challenges will I face?

 

 

How will I overcome these challenges?

 

 

How will I measure my progress?

 

 

The first step I will take is: 


When Goals Matter – Part Three

Steve Keating 1 Comment

Hopefully since my last post you’ve been considering those activities you do with some regularity that provide you with no return on your time investment. Your odds of accomplishing anything new go way up when you’re prepared to give up something old to get it. I guess maybe that’s what “they” mean when they say life is full of trade-offs.

 

If you’re indeed serious about stopping something in order to start something new you’ll need to set a stop goal with as much specificity and accountability as any other goal. We’ll talk about those goal setting characteristics in our next post but the key thing to remember is that a stop goal is indeed a goal and the same rules apply if you plan on achieving it. Old habits die hard and unless you’re very intentional about killing them they tend to linger on indefinitely.

 

There is no magic to the number of goals you have but keep in mind if you’re focusing on 21 different things you actually have no focus at all. Prioritizing your goals in order to focus is a key to actually achieving them. It’s also perfectly okay, in fact it’s good practice, to occasionally adjust and rethink your goals.

 

If you’re serious about goal setting then it’s vital that you be honest with yourself. If you have a goal to be debt-free in 3 years then don’t try to convince yourself that you can go three years and never spurge on something. Build the occasional spurge into your goals, discipline is important in achieving goals but so is realism. Being overly aggressive when setting goals causes frustration and frustration is a short path to failure.

 

Your formal goal-setting process begins by determining your vision and your mission. You should write out an actual vision and mission statement to guide you through your goal-setting and your life. Your vision statement is a description of where you are going in life and what it will look like when you get there. Make it fun, make it appealing and make it truthful. This is YOUR vision, don’t be talked out of it by someone who wants to run your life. It’s hard enough to achieve your own goals; you’ll find it nearly impossible and totally unfulfilling trying to achieve someone else’s. 

 

Once you have your vision statement you’re ready to develop your mission statement. This is a statement that sums up the direction you want your life to take in the future. That direction should be leading you directly to your vision. Once developed your mission will become the driving force behind your goals, both personal and professional. 

 

Goals always matter but when you’re on a mission you’ll find that goals really really matter.

 

By the way, if you’re still wondering about those stop goals then a mission statement can really come in handy. If you’re doing something too frequently that doesn’t help you accomplish your mission then you may want to set a stop goal around it. That allows you to focus more energy on the things that do help you accomplish your mission.


In my next post I’ll discuss the areas of your life you may want to consider setting goals and exactly what a true goal looks like. Until then start thinking about your vision and mission. Understanding, with great specificity, where you want to go in life is absolutely essential if you truly hope to get there.


When Goals Matter – Part Two

Steve Keating 1 Comment

I should probably warn you right up front that the process of setting truly achievable goals is serious work. It requires some heavy thinking and a substantial commitment of time. If you’re not at a point in your life where you want to have a measure of control over every aspect of it then maybe this post isn’t for you.

 

If however you want to be the driver of your life then read on, I’m talking to you.

 

A solid goal-setting process begins with the investment of some serious time considering what is important in your life. That might sound easy but here’s the deal, what is important in your life isn’t what you say it is, it is what you show it is.

 

For instance, you might say that losing weight and maintaining a good physical condition is an important goal for you. But if I followed you around for a week would I be able to “see” that in you. I’d have my doubts if I followed you up to the snack counter at the movies for your third popcorn refill. 

 

It’s so much easier to say what’s important than it is to show what’s important. Other people see what is truly important in your life, often before you do. Before you set a single goal you need to understand that it’s your actions that really reflect what’s important in your life. So don’t “think” about what’s important in your life, “watch” yourself and “see” what’s actually important in your life. Better yet, ask your mentor or a close friend what they think is important in your life. That could be a huge eye-opener for you.

 

Once you understand what is important in your life then you’re almost ready to set some true goals.

 

I say almost because there is one other absolutely vital step in the goal setting process that most people completely overlook.

 

Before you can set a true goal you MUST set one or more “stop goals.” These are the things you’ll stop doing in order to start doing something else. Achieving most goals means doing something that you’re not currently doing. That means you’ll take on something new, something which requires some sort of time investment. 

 

Most people set this goal without any consideration of where the time will come from. Unless you’re one of the rare people who sits around wondering how you can burn a few more hours before bedtime, you’re day (and night) is already too busy. Setting a goal which requires more time without the time to achieve it is merely setting a fools goal. 

 

If you have no time to invest in achieving a goal then the goal will not be achieved. Period.

 

One of the biggest, if not the biggest mistake people make in goal setting is not starting by setting stop goals. 

 

So, in my next post we’ll start the goal setting process by discussing stopping those time consuming, low return activities that all of us do without even thinking about them. They are often mindless little things but that doesn’t mean they aren’t incredibly expensive in terms of the time it takes to do them.


Until then start noticing how you use your time and ask yourself what you’re doing that really pays no return. If you could stop doing it without anyone, including yourself, really noticing then maybe you should just stop doing it. Think about it! 

When Goals Matter

Steve Keating 5 Comments

So, I’m on the tee box of a fairly long par four hole on a world renowned golf course. I hit a perfect drive, long by my standards and my ball rolls to a spot in the middle of the fairway. It leaves me with an easy shot to the green except that the green is well above me at the top of a sizable incline. I can’t actually see the putting surface but my golf map shows me the size and shape of the green so I decide to go at the middle of the green. I figure that’s my best chance at a par on this challenging hole. 

 

Well my shot felt perfect and I was certain when I reached the top of the hill I would find my ball at least near the center of the green. As I approached the top with great anticipation I saw my ball almost perfectly placed in the absolute center of the green. Another perfect shot!

 

In that same instant I looked for the hole to see how long my putt would be. I looked and looked but to my amazement I simply couldn’t find the hole. My playing partners couldn’t find it either. We couldn’t find it because there was no hole. I was crushed, the rarity of two consecutive good shots was for naught. I couldn’t finish the hole because there was no hole. Whatever happened the rest of the round no longer mattered either, I could not reach my goal of making par on this difficult hole.

 

With the goal gone I quickly lost interest in the remainder of the round. 

 

Or at least I would have if that had actually happened. (The part about the green not having a hole isn’t the only made up part of the story, the part about the two great shots in a row is even more unbelievable, at least for me) 

 

Imagine running a race with no finish line… how far are you willing to run knowing there really isn’t a finish? 

 

Imagine paying big money for front row seats to an NBA Basketball game and once you reach your high priced seats you see that there are no baskets. The players will just be running up and down the floor dribbling and passing the ball but never actually taking a shot. I mean why take a shot when there is nothing to shoot at?

 

You wouldn’t pay money to watch that because there is no outcome….the players work just as hard, it just leads to nothing. I’m betting they would be bored almost as quickly as you.

 

As unlikely as those scenarios may seem the fact is that a majority of people go through their lives playing basketball ball without a basket and they run a race with no finish line. You see, a majority of people, actually a vast majority, have no formal goals in their lives. They have nothing to shoot for, there is no finish line to cross. 

 

As a result they lose interest in whatever it is they are doing pretty quickly. They go through the motions of life without really living. They can tell you what’s important to them but you’ll seldom see it in what they do with their time. 

 

Most people spend on average 40 hours planning a vacation of a week or longer yet invest virtually no time planning the rest of their lives. Goals are the plan for the rest of your life. 

 

If you truly want success, long-term lasting success as defined by you and you alone, then goals matter. 

 

The most successful people in every walk of life have goals and a written plan to achieve them. In my next post we will look at where and how you may want to set goals, real goals, achievable goals, for yourself. 

 

Goals will guide you towards greater success and fulfillment in your life so be sure to catch part two of this post just a few days from now! 

First Things First

Steve Keating 4 Comments

I teach a Time Management program. I probably shouldn’t since there is actually no such thing as time management. No one has ever managed time. Time does it’s own thing, relentlessly ticking off second after second regardless of what you may need to accomplish.

I hear people saying all the time that they don’t have enough time but the fact is they do. They have all the time in the world. No one who has ever lived has had more time than you have right now. They didn’t have less either.

1440 minutes a day is what each of us gets to accomplish what we will. No one has ever gotten more and barring the coolest tech not yet invented I doubt they ever will.

So time management is a bit of a misnomer, it’s probably better described as event management. The events that make up your day are what chews up your time. The people who seem to have more time are the ones who have mastered the mindset that everything they do during a day is an event. 

They see breakfast as an event, they see their morning stop at the coffee shop as an event. They see every phone call as an event and they know that when they have a day full of events they stop adding more. If they do add more they drop something else off their list of events.

Managing the events that make up your day teaches you a very important life lesson: no one has too little time, what they have is very poor prioritization skills.

People without prioritization skills end up doing less important things at the expense of more important things, often at the expense of the most important thing.

They do the easy thing, they do what they like, they do what they have always done. If any of those things happen to be the most important thing, the most productive thing, then that’s a happy coincidence. But successful people don’t rely on coincidence.

If you’re really going to be a good life event manager then you’re going to need to have a serious conversation with yourself. That conversation should be centered around your life goals, your values and your objectives. Most people who fail in doing the most important thing first do so simply because they don’t know what the most important thing is. 

Set goals, real goals. Goals that align with your values and principles. Write those goals down and make a plan to achieve them. You’ll be amazed at how much time you really have when pretty much everything you do gets you closer to one of those goals. 

Quit trying to manage time and start managing your life, that’s your true path to success.

Eight Percent

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Eight percent! That’s the percentage of people who make New Year’s resolutions that will keep them. 25% of people will keep them less than a week. 

I never recommend making resolutions in the first place, I am far more partial to setting actual goals. Goals are much more concrete but you must remember that if you’re setting true goals then you’ll need to invest some time to develop a plan for achieving them too.

But if you insist on making New Years resolutions at least give yourself a chance to keep them. 

Here’s how:

Make it simple. Many people make a long list of resolutions and when they fail at one the momentum, and motivation, to keep the others goes away. Make your resolutions small and easy to keep…. a little progress is better than no progress at all. 

For instance, don’t resolve to lose 25 pounds, resolve to leave a few bites on your plate at the end of your meals. Losing weight requires a life style change and those kind of changes seldom come from a simple decision or resolution. Leaving behind your lifelong membership in the clean plate club however can be much easier.

Be specific. This principle comes from the most effective goal setters. The more specific you are when stating your resolution the more likely you are to keep it. Specificity leads to an emotional attachment to your resolution and makes it easier to invest in…and keep.

Rather than say you’re going to “be a better person in 2016” state in very specific terms what behavior you will change or eliminate to make that happen. Don’t forget the simple part… a resolution to be more positive is too general to succeed and it’s also likely complicated. 

So resolve to smile more, make a conscious choice to smile often because it’s tough to be negative with a smile on your face.  Decide this very moment how many times a day you’re going to smile and then set an alarm in your smartphone to remind yourself. Every time that alarm goes off think of something that makes you smile. You’ll be surprised at how it can improve your attitude.

Share your resolution. Tell people who care about you that you made a resolution and ask them to help you keep it. Successful people are not afraid to ask for help, if you’re serious about your resolution then you’ll almost certainly need some help to keep it. 

Try and try again. Most people give up their resolution the first time they fail to keep it. If you fail to keep your resolution on a Monday then make it anew on Tuesday. If it was worth making once then it’s worth making again. If it’s a self-improvement resolution you’re better off keeping it half the time throughout the year than you are keeping it all the time for the first few days of the year. 

Eight percent is a relatively small percentage but being part of it can make a big difference for you in the new year. It’s never easy to succeed but if it’s truly worth it to you then you’ll do more than make a resolution, you’ll keep it too. 

The Limiting Nature of Goals

Steve Keating 4 Comments

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!