So New Years Day has arrived once again. Have you set your resolutions for 2010? Have you broken them yet? It seems the American tradition has changed from making resolutions to breaking them!
I’ve spent a lot of time recently studying goal setting & achievement. One of the many things I’ve learned, and that I’d like to share with you, is one method that has proven quite effective. Ultimately it is up to you as an individual to follow through with your commitment. By following these guidelines, you should find the right balance that will make achieving your goals quite realistic:
- Limit your number of goals. Too many people set 15, 436 goals and then are bummed because they only accomplish a few. Choose just a few, no more than 3, to concentrate upon. Once you have achieved them, you can go on and set new goals!
- Pick goals that you are passionate about. Forget about trying to make everyone else happy. Be selfish. If you aren’t, you won’t have the necessary desire to stay motivated.
- Make your goals specific. None of this wimpy, “I wanna be rich.” Okay, what’s rich? Are we talking specific dollar amounts? Per year, per month, per deal? Get specific!
- Make your goals measureable. “I want to increase my sales,” is not good enough. Try something like, I want to increase my sales by 25% over last year. Or, I will sell $1 million of ads by December 31, 2010.
- Make your goals time-bound. If you don’t set specific guidelines for an ending date of achieving your goal, then you are just giving yourself a loophole that permits you to fail. Notice the example goal in step 4 gives a specific date.
- Just Do It! Nike had a HUGE ad campaign using this slogan in the late 80′s/early 90′s. In short, you must decide that no matter what happens, you will accomplish your goal.
In my experience, there are too many business people in our market who don’t know where they are going. I admit, until recently, I was in the same boat. Too often we let life happen, and then just react.
The truth is that we make our own lives. Whatever you are doing now is by your own choice. No one put a gun to your back and made you be a butcher, a baker, or a candle-stick maker. It may not be where you envisioned yourself at this stage in your life, but ultimately, you made the choice. Don’t like it? Do something about it!
My purpose for this entry is to help rejuvenate and reinvigorate our local economy. There are too many wasted opportunities and too much lost business because of indecisive and bored business people. We can do better!
Want to learn more? Want to give your business a kick start for the rest of 2010? Let me know and I will be happy to provide you with a complimentary assessment of where your business stands and make some suggestions on how you can get where you want to be!
Carpe Diem!
Categories: Business.
