The Tips for Goal Setting That, Trust Me, No One Teaches

The Tips for Goal Setting That, Trust Me, No One Teaches

We live in a capitalist society, and everyone assumes we know how to set and achieve goals. In my work with leaders over the past 30+ years, I know that most people don’t. It isn’t something we are taught by our parents or in school, so how could we know? 

Goal setting isn’t a one-step process. It’s a system. The system works for the person who wants to earn their PhD, and it works for the person who wants to complete their will this month. It’s not about a short or long-term goal – it’s about knowing the process for achieving the goal.

I tell all the clients I’ve worked with on goal setting to let me know when they reach their goal and how it went. I love getting messages through LinkedIn and email with the great news! I’ve heard it all: quitting smoking, ending a bad marriage, earning a PhD, finishing an Iron Man, spending more quality time with their children.

The system works so well that I always tell people in my goal-setting workshops, “I am guaranteeing that if you take your goal through these 10 steps, you will achieve it every time. And if you don’t, you need to reach out to me.” To this day, no one has reached out and said they didn’t achieve their goal.

Goal setting is linked to higher achievement

Research has shown that leaders and their teams achieve more when they set goals. In this article, author Rick McDaniel states, “Goal setters are comfortable with risk, prefer innovation, and are energized by change.” Edwin A. Locke, a pioneer in the field of goal setting, found that individuals who have highly ambitious goals have a better performance and output rate than those who don’t.

Goal setting can also restructure your brain (you can read the technical explanation of how it happens here). Two types of goals make the most dramatic changes to the brain structure: highly emotional goals and ambitious goals. With highly emotional goals, you are more motivated to succeed and more likely to downplay the difficulty of achieving the goal. With ambitious goals, you are more motivated to succeed than easily achieved goals. 

The first step in goal setting

Goal setting starts with the WHYSMART pneumonic:

  • W – Written (Write the goal out)
  • H – Harmonious (Aligns with you and your life)
  • Y – Yours (It is your goal, not someone else’s)
  • S – Specific (or Significant)
  • M – Measurable (or Meaningful with numbers)
  • A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented)
  • R – Realistic (you must believe it can happen)
  • T – Time-bound (or Trackable/Dated)

Here are a few other tricks I urge my clients to use when setting goals:

Write positive goals

State your goal in positive, rather than negative, terms. “Build a team of people smarter than me” is much better than “Don’t hire the wrong people.”

Prioritize goals

If your goal is to build a $50 million company, you’ll have several sub-goals, each with its own steps that will help you achieve that big goal. The best way to tackle this is by prioritizing goals. For instance, perhaps it is more important to build your team first before going after Fortune 100 clients.

Set performance goals over outcome goals 

As you work to build that $50 million company, you will run into bumps along the way that stop you from hitting, say, this year’s revenue projections. To keep discouragement at bay, set performance goals instead.

If your team increases sales, you met your performance goals. If one of your biggest clients filed for bankruptcy, you may have missed revenue projections – but that’s not due to poor performance by your own team.

Be realistic

There is nothing more disheartening than setting goals you cannot possibly achieve. That’s why I so admire a friend of mine who is building her company slowly and purposefully. She recognizes and embraces reality: she’s not just a CEO, but she’s also a wife, mom, and friend, and she is absolutely committed to taking time out for herself every day.

Make sure it’s your goal

This is worth repeating! Your goal must truly be your goal, not the organization’s goal and not someone else’s goal. The same is true for your team. Your team isn’t going to be effective if they’re working toward your goal. They need to be focused on their own individual goal.

There’s an art in being a leader and helping your team come up with goals. The goal has to connect with the goals of the team, department and organization.

Start with WHYSMART but remember that this is only one step in the process. The other nine steps are equally important, and I would like to shar them with you. If you are interested let me know.

Are you a leader who values goal setting? We help leaders of Fortune 500 companies and government agencies improve their skills for more effective leadership. There is so much power in goal setting. As we look to a brighter 2021, make sure your team is setting the right goals. We offer 45 and 90-minute goal setting webinars for teams. Contact us to learn more and schedule one for your team: jfletcher@winningwaysinc.com .

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