The How To in setting and achieving meaningful business goals.

Moving forward with the Goal to Destination Roadmap we will now dive into Setting Your Inspiring Goals and the Fundamentals of Goal Setting.

If you haven’t already read our article Goal to Destination Roadmap: Set Goals for Success, jump back and check this out before reading on here.

Now that you’ve faced any past influences that may have affected your goal-setting success, you’re ready to move forward. Next, we are going to quickly discuss, the fundamentals of goal setting and how to use tried-and-tested models to inspire you to achieve your goals.

Fundamentals of Goal Setting

Apply the goal-setting fundamentals that bring impact, power, and practicality to your process.

Before you start setting your goals, let’s reflect on the key reasons you’re doing this by revisiting the example of the road trip. Imagine you’re planning a journey. Your suitcases are packed, your car serviced, and your plants watered. You organize your family and load up the car. You hit the road all together feeling excitement and a sense of anticipation. Down the road, you come to the first stoplight. You don’t know whether to turn right or left, so you make a guess and turn right. You then come to an intersection a long way away from home with multiple exits. Which one are you going to take? Your sense of anticipation turns to a sense of panic as you drive in circles trying to decide. The children are screaming, you’re running out of gas, you’re getting hungry, and your dream journey has turned into a nightmare. This is what happens if you leave home without a clear destination.

Goals are your destination, they:

• Provide direction
• Concentrate your attention on your intended results and keep you away from distractions
• Stretch and challenge you so you can see what you’re truly capable of
• Inspire you to put in your best effort and tackle any obstacles that arise

In these ways, goals lead you to your planned results. When you formulate your goals, there are some key points to bear in mind.

Remember the 3Ps when Formulating Goals

Positive.

Goals should express what you want to happen, not what you want to avoid. For example: “I increase my monthly income and easily pay my bills,” rather than “I no longer struggle to meet my monthly financial commitments.”

Personal.

Make your goals more motivating by using the first person and relating outcomes to yourself. For example: “I am happy and fulfilled when I read the positive comments my customers leave” is better than “Customers consistently give positive feedback on our products.”

Present Tense.

It is more powerful to articulate a goal in the present tense, as if it has already happened, versus writing about an unknown future. For example: “I am the go-to person for business coaching” rather than “I will be the go-to person for business coaching.”

These points may seem so simple that you don’t bother with them. But it’s worth the effort to make these small but important changes. You’ll feel more excited about your goals and therefore more likely to achieve them.

It isn’t enough to just think about your goals. You must write them down. Thoughts easily get forgotten and lost in everyday life. It’s estimated that the average person will have more than 6,000 thoughts per day. It would be easy for your goals to get lost in all that mind activity if you didn’t have a written anchor to ground you.

Three Reasons to Write Down Goals

1. It helps you clarify and focus

By writing your goals down on paper, you’re clarifying what is most important to you. The written words reinforce the desired direction in your subconscious mind so that it can start a seek-and-find mission to identify the easiest path to your goals. Writing helps crystallize your thoughts and you become focused and specific. You can more easily see the bigger picture and create manageable smaller steps to achieve your goals.

2. It shows commitment

Writing down your goals shows commitment to yourself and your desire to achieve your goals. It’s like a promise you make to yourself. It reinforces that you and your dreams are important, and you will do what it takes to achieve them. It’s a powerful declaration and it will help build positive expectancy.

3. It helps in planning

A written overview of your thoughts and goals allows you to see what needs to be done and makes it easier to act. By planning each step and directing your attention to the progress you need to make, achieving your goals feels doable.

After every goal you write, check your level of motivation. If you’re not emotionally connected to the achievement of a specific goal, it’s unlikely that you’ll feel excited enough to follow through. Adjust the goal before you spend too much energy on it.

Ask yourself: How motivated am I to do what it takes to achieve this goal on a scale of 1-10? (1=not bothered and 10=highly-motivated)

You want a score of 8 or above. If you’re below that, then take another look at the wording of your goal. For example, is it: Positive? Personal? In the present?

Adjust it to make it more inspiring or choose another goal. If you leave the goal as it is, you are less likely to achieve it because you aren’t excited enough to take the necessary action. Be honest with yourself. You’re the only one with something to lose. Articulating your goal in SMART terms will help, as you’ll discover in the next article SMART Goal Setting.

We have reached the end of article 2 of 2 on our deep dive into the Goal to Destination RoadMap. We will walk you through the remaining steps of this power goal setting framework over the next couple of weeks so please watch this space.

If you would prefer you can watch as Alex Alexandrou walks you through the entire Goal to Destination RoadMap in this Power of the Written Goal LI LIVE recording or listen via the Mentors Walk Expert Talk Podcast available on Spotify.