Setting Goals You Can Achieve

Posted by Greg Bustin (January 1, 2006)

Excerpted from the book, Take Charge! How Leaders Profit From Change, by Greg Bustin.

Starting a New Year focuses extra attention on goal-setting – and goal-getting.

But guess what? If certain steps are not taken during any goal-setting process, chances are great the objectives will not be achieved. In fact, the Journal of Clinical Psychology estimates that 36% of the people who make New Year’s resolutions break them or abandon them by January 31.

Whether we call the process making resolutions, goal-setting, business planning, time management, list-making or something else, leaders who follow seven proven rules achieve more of what they’re after.

It all starts with setting clear objectives – whether at the outset of an engagement, an internal project or a New Year. Clarity helps reconcile priorities, time constraints and budgets, and establishes a specific vision of success. Clarity is one of the critical components of success. After all, if we can’t define success precisely, we can never achieve it.

Get it done

More than ever, leaders are intent on getting things done and driving bottom-line results.

Have you ever wondered what your most precious commodity is? It’s time. Because once you lose it you’ll never get it back.

Goals, of course, are about the future. But to set and achieve goals you must first understand, embrace and realize the power of the present. Most people fail to achieve their goals due to their failure to live in the “now.” People that live in the now unleash the power of the present. Living in the now is necessary because the past is over – you can’t change it. The future is uncertain – you can’t foresee it. The past and future are illusions. We have only the present within our grasp and, God willing, it’s the closet thing under our control.

By focusing on the present, you commit yourself to change and to success. This attitude embraces the idea that if you act today and do the things that you commit to doing, you can succeed.

But annual plans of any kind – personal or professional – dissolve when:

Goals are abstract or ambiguous
You live in the past and dream about the future
You don’t set your attitude to make the required changes
You don’t see that what you’re doing today makes a difference toward achieving your goal

Seven steps to success

So where’s the balance between planning and execution? Applying these seven proven steps can help bring you success in 2006 and beyond:

Set clear, measurable objectives. Be specific. Wanting to lose weight is a dream; losing 10 pounds by July 1 is specific. Limit yourself to three measurable goals. Trying to achieve more than three goals will dilute your efforts. When you achieve them, develop three more.
Set a deadline. Assigning a deadline to a specific goal makes the goal more attainable. Deadlines are powerful tools. We start our planning process by asking, What do you want to celebrate one year from today?
Write it down. Saying it isn’t enough. Committing your goals to writing requires discipline and increases the odds of success.
Commit to improvement. Ferry Porsche believes “Change is easy, but improvement is far more difficult.” It’s a mind-set. The choice is yours.
Make each day count and hold yourself accountable. Holiday Inn founder Kemmon Wilson says, “You cannot procrastinate – in two days, tomorrow will be yesterday.” Review your progress regularly.
Never give up. Recalibrate your objectives if you must, but don’t quit.
Celebrate victories. Reward yourself if your goal is personal. Reward your team if it’s a group goal. Celebrations are important because they acknowledge short-term successes and refresh minds, bodies and spirits for the next step on your goal-getting journey.

Consider this time management system developed by business legend Andrew Carnegie to help keep yourself focused. It consists of three deceptively simple components:

At the start of each day, make a list of tasks to complete.
Mark six items considered most important at that time.
Work on the single item, or part of that item, that is the most important at that moment until it is completed or something else becomes more important.

Sound easy?

Try it.

“We are what we repeatedly do,” noted Aristotle. “Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Or as Warren Buffet said, “Chains of habit are too light to feel until they are too heavy to be broken.”

Habits, therefore, can be good – or bad. What habits are you committed to working on in 2006 to help you achieve your goals?

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