10½ ways to achieve your yearly goals

How to achieve your yearly goals

1. Review the past year

Before embarking on a new business plan or developing personal goals you need to reflect carefully and honestly on your current position and have total clarity on the bigger picture, i.e. the end point.

In this reflection and analysis the following questions need to be addressed before any goals are set.

  • What is your personal vision?
  • What is your level of commitment to achieve this vision?
  • How have you delivered vs. Last year’s goals?
  • What have you learnt in the past year?
  • What have been the highlights?
  • What resources have you used?
  • What people have you involved in realising your goals?
  • How did you track progress of your goals?
  • How did you celebrate success?

These are just a selection of the kind of questions that you should ask yourself; this is not a comprehensive list. Think about both financial (‘hard’) and non financial (‘soft’) goals.

2. Set the right goals

Having reviewed last year, you are now ready to reflect on what you want to achieve in the year ahead.

The following important considerations should be made in designing your plan:

  • Your goals should fit the needs of your business, team or family unit;
  • Your goals must be written – preferably by hand;
  • You will know when you have achieved your goals and be able to track progress vs. delivery;
  • Be honest. There is no value in creating goals that are ‘pie in the sky’ or you do not believe in;
  • Goals must be designed with a mindset of what is coming next, i.e. they are a series of stepping stones to achieve something bigger;
  • You may be familiar already with the concept of SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) but we suggest SMARTER goals.

SMARTER stand for Specific, Motivational, Attainable for you, Relevant to you, Trackable, Enjoyable, and Rewarding.

3. Don’t beat yourself up!

Have a positive and flexible mind set. Goals are not fixed in stone – you can change them. Adopt a practice of regularly reviewing progress towards your goals and tweak or even change them if and when your circumstances.

For example, In financial planning you may develop a 12 month plan which is based on sound reasoning at the start of the year, but a changing business environment may require additional funding or expenditure. This is fine. Better practice is to create a rolling 12 month cash flow activity tracker with 6 months history and 6 months forward projection which updates each month.

Goals are set to help you, not to hinder you. If the goal you set is no longer attainable perhaps it’s no longer the right goal.

Don’t beat yourself up but change the goal or change your approach to achieve it.
Consider falling short of your goals as a learning experience not failure.
You might ask yourself:

  • Did I set the right goals?
  • Is the goal consistent with my business of personal position today?

4. Tell other your goals

Telling others your goals is a smart way to increase commitment. You will want to achieve the goals you have set to save face when you are asked about your progress.

Each year I attend a fantastic conference for small business called the Consultants Development Network. Last year I shared my plans with the group to launch an e-newsletter. Telling the group was just the impetus I needed to make it happen.

5. Create a roadmap

With a clear vision and goals in place the next step is to create a roadmap of how you are going to get from A to B.

The best road maps have the following characteristics:

  • They are visual
  • They are inspiring
  • Clear milestones keep you on track and enable you to celebrate the accomplishment of small goals
  • Big goals are broken down into bite sized chunks
  • The path you are following is clear
  • You can track progress
  • You can see the roadmap everyday

6. Everything counts

The small things do count. You may know our mantra that ‘small differences collectively change outcomes’.

Let me share an example from the beginning of my career to elucidate this point. At Procter and Gamble every sales account executive is trained to:

  • Keep a clean car
  • Always have a sharp pencil when field working
  • Plan journeys in advance
  • Make observations before entering a store, e.g. number of cars in the car park; posters hanging in the window; profile of shoppers etc.
  • Know the ‘persuasive selling format’ like a mantra
  • The point is that the attention to detail creates the right state of mind to win business and succeed in delivering goals.

Individually it might not add up to much but together is makes all the difference.

7. Help others achieve their goals

By helping others you are investing in your future success.

The law of reciprocity explains how there is an innate tendency in humans to return favours. If you can help someone else do so. 


 

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