Back in corporate life on large projects we were always setting deadlines, putting together schedules and trying meet our commitments to our customers. There was lots of pressure, with very high costs involved. We had goals at each and every level of the organization but ultimately all were driven from the top level strategic business goals that over time were translated into more and more detail at each level of the company. We had many processes and tools and meetings to discuss our business plans and targets. Then once it was put together we then had to communicate that to all the team members and gain their buy-in, their commitment to achieving the laid down business plans. But that is another whole topic in itself, and a very important one, but let's get back to setting goals.
Just about everyone knows they have to set goals and a well known guideline is the SMART acronym, you may have heard of it. If you hunt around on the internet you will find some different variations on the SMART theme but here are my thoughts.
To achieve your goals they need to be SMART:
S is for Specific. You must state exactly what you want to achieve and the target date when you wish to achieve it. The how is another matter at the early stages of your goal. You may just want to get fit, or lose weight or run faster or make twice as much income next year. Well still write that down even though you may not know how you are going to do that. Just get the goal written down, and rewrite it every day if you need to until it is locked into your head. For your small internet business maybe your goal might be double your traffic in 3 months, or to double your web offerings in 3 months, or to double your click through rates. There are many things you could choose. More on that another time.
M is for Measurable. There is an old saying and a good one - "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it". Or in other words, and this is important, "Things that are measured get improved". So you must set goals that can be measured in some way, in a specific and objective way so that you can't fool yourself. If you fool yourself and don't use hard objective measures you are asking for trouble. It is a bit like driving a car on a long journey and ignoring the signposts along the way - you end up lost, and probably out of fuel! If you really want to achieve something you need to measure your progress along the way so you know if you are still traveling in the right direction, and also so you know when you get there. Measure each step, and each major achievement along the way to your goal. Like driving from one side of the country to the other. You measure off each town, city, state along the way until you get to your destination, your goal. Related to this is a whole topic of what to measure, because measuring the wrong thing can mean to focus your efforts in the wrong area, which will divert you from your goals. An example, is someone who tries to lose weight and just measures their weight but not their percentage fat and water content. Maybe, they lose some weight, but maybe they lose too much muscle mass as well which won't help them. Or driving on a long journey but only measuring the miles driven and not the cities you have gone through - sounds obvious and in that example it is, but in business it isn't always so obvious what measures you should choose. Think carefully about what you should measure, it is important.I will write more on this topic another time.
A is for Attainable or Achievable. No point setting a goal if you can never ever achieve it so you have to be realistic. But the trick here is the balance between realism and setting what some call "Big Hairy Audacious Goals" or "Thinking Big" or "Stretch Goals". There is something strange about the way our psychology works and I am not a psychologist, but if you set small, little, easily achievable goals all the time you won't be inspired by them, they won't set your gut on fire, they won't excite you and you may not even achieve them. Sure, to start your goal setting habits in the right direction you should set some small relatively easy goals to show you how the process works. But don't, just don't keep on setting goals that aren't big enough. How tall are you? How high can you reach? What if you stretch a little bit more? What if you stretched just a little bit more - now how high can you reach? I bet it is further than you thought you could. You get the idea - set goals that you can reach but only if you stretch to reach them. Set goals that are on the "top shelf" of life and business, not the easy to get ones on the bottom shelf.
R is for Relevant. We are all different, we are all motivated by different things and in different ways so set goals for yourself that mean something to you. They might not be so important to others but they need to be important and relevant and meaningful to YOU. If it doesn't motivate you, maybe you need to rethink it, rewrite it, reword it until it touches something in you, right inside you. Then take steps to achieve it, every day, every week, every month until you reach it.
T is for Time-Limited. We have all done it, we have all said I will get fit - wait for it - "one day" or "tomorrow" or "next week". I have a goal like that at the moment, I am going to repaint the deck "sometime". Yes, you guessed it, I am not highly motivated to paint my deck, I am more motivated in other directions. So when you set a goal you need to put a date on it, a time when you really will strive to achieve it by. And to make it a little bit easier you should work backwards from your main goal and list the steps or objectives that you need to achieve along the way to achieving your main goal. For example, first I need to do A - clean the deck, then I need to do B - repair the timber, then C - nail up the lose boards, and so on until you have listed all the steps, tasks, actions, or objectives you need to achieve in order to reach that "top shelf goal" you are setting for yourself and that you really do want to achieve. Once you have listed those steps, put a date on when you plan to achieve each and every one, and tick it off as you go. But don't worry about getting some of the dates wrong, you will get some wrong, just do the best you can, adapt as you go and work to towards your goal. This list of steps or tasks or objectives with dates, becomes your plan, your time based map to reach your destination. Use it and follow it and you will achieve your goals.
Well so much for SMART - it seems sensible doesn't it? What can be hard about that?
Well maybe you don't find it hard, but I personally find it hard, while others find it easy. For most people it is harder than it looks, we are each very different so what works for one may not work for the other. Most people and most businesses know they should set goals but many never do so, why? For me personally sometimes what happens is that I have set goals that don't really do it for me, they aren't really deeply relevant to me, they don't really enthuse me, so I don't achieve them because I am not passionate about them. But when something really is important to me, I am passionate about it, I am driven by it, and I achieve it, sometimes very quickly. Maybe you have had that experience as well. From my experience I know that the best chance I have of achieving anything is to follow the SMART guidelines and I am sure if you do, you will have a much better chance of success.
To be SMART about our new Internet Business I knew I had to set hard attainable relevant meaningful goals and drive myself to achieve them in just the same way I did when I was in corporate life. So everyday in the morning for a few weeks and whenever I get the chance I listen to advice from some of the masters in the field on what seems a simple topic: "How to set goals and achieve them". I listened and listened until it started to become ingrained, though to be honest it still isn't ingrained enough so I keep at it. Why - because I know it needs to become a powerful habit - I know our business will grow as a result. Setting goals will drive your business.
Once I really understood the power of setting goals in each aspect of my life, and I stopped worrying about exactly how I would achieve each goal at the outset, and that was hard, then I did sit down and write them out. Then each day I read them, sometimes I change them, but each day they are driving me forward. They are like fuel to my motivation engine and the provide direction for my work and almost everything I do. Try it - it will help you, and your business and even more if you give it a chance.
If you want to know which of the many Goal setting publications and authors I found most useful just reply to this blog with a question and I will post the names of the people in the hope that it helps you to.
Thanks for reading, now take some action, why don't you set some goals right now!
Owen
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