How to set goals and achieve more
Andrew Dobbin is a business coach and mentor for The Business Mindset. In the second of his two part series on getting the most from your work and your life, he outlines the best way to set yourself goals and achieve more.
Taking time out to focus on what you want from your business and your life, to set goals and evaluate them as you go along, is very important.
I recently undertook a survey with 80 leading business people and from their responses I could see that 72.5% have goals but they only review them sporadically.
I work with my clients to set goals for their business, looking at financial income and debt, project sales and new ventures, as well as goals for work/life balances including days off, health, relationships and time spent with family. There may be one aspect that you want to work on more than others or there might be a lot of changes that you want to make to your life.
I run a ten week challenge, where we provide a support group to help people set out and reach their goals. Your first step will be to identify where you want to move to and then you take steps every week to hit those goals. They may not be big steps, but the small steps will allow you to reach your ideal life.
The following tips are vital to success:
Find an accountability partner – This person needs to be someone who isn’t afraid to ask questions. They need to be someone that you are open with and someone who will provide you with support. They need to be a person who will challenge you when you don’t carry out an action that you had outlined within a certain timeline.
Set up an evaluation procedure – You need to set aside a weekly or monthly date where you take the goals you outlined at the previous session and evaluate them. You need to assign accountability to each step. Most people leave things until the last minute, that is human nature, but if your goals are reached it doesn’t matter how you get there.
Choose your language – Whatever the goals are that you want to set for yourself, they need to be personal. They must be written in the present tense with a timescale around them. Do not write goals with phrases like ‘I hope’ or ‘I will try’. Those are weak words that aren’t definite. There needs to be an emotion attached to them, a reason why. People achieve extraordinary things when they have to.
