Try This Simple 3 Step Goal Setting System for Entrepreneurs
Monday, November 2, 2009 at 06:38AM There are countless books, articles, and blogs written about goal setting. What I have found is that most of these resources offer overly complex, unclear, and impractical goal setting methodology. There is a very simple way to quickly and easily define achievable goals that you may not know about. This method immediately cuts to the core of what is most important in establishing any goal, which is clearly defining the end result.
The process you use to achieve the goal is secondary to knowing, with absolute clarity, what the outcome is that you seek. You see, our mind works optimally when it has clear instructions. The ability to provide your mind with clear instructions in both words and pictures is paramount to your ability to succeed in getting what you want. This brings us back to my point that you must develop the skill of being able to define exactly what it is that you want in order to begin achieving at a high level.
So, Step 1 in my method for simple and effective goal setting for entrepreneurs is to ask yourself the following question in relation to some component of your business, project, or systems, "What do I want to have happen?" Answering this question with as much detail as possible immediately gives your mind the instructions it needs to begin determining the most efficient process for getting the result.
It is critically important that you commit these words to paper and review and refine them daily because this will activate additional automatic goal-seeking mechanisms within your brain.
Step 2 in my method for entrepreneurial goal setting is to take the goal you've now written, as a result of the process you followed in Step 1, and break it down into as many smaller, short-range steps as you can. This will take a seemingly big, intimidating goal and make it more manageable and realistic which contributes to the clarity of the instructions you are providing to your brain. To facilitate this, work backwards from the goal you defined in Step 1. Write down each incremental step in the process to getting to your big goal. Now you have a plan for achieving your goal, and, just like in Step 1, you should be consciously reviewing and refining these words everyday.
Step 3 is the final step. Now that you have your goal clearly defined and a plan including incremental steps that you intend to use to get the end result, it is time to create a timeline and build rituals into your working days and weeks to ensure that you get what you want. If you're a visual person you may want to actually draw a timeline of deadlines and put today on one end and your big goal on the other, and then put the incremental steps in between. If you're not a visual person, then a written list with deadlines next to each step might work just fine.
Next, it's time to create one or a set of multiple daily and weekly rituals that will ensure you consistently do what is necessary to get to your your goal on time. For more information about the power of rituals and how to use them to get things done and achieve your goals, please consult my previous posts, How Write a Book in 100-days or Less and 692 words that could change your life.
So, now you have a super simple system for setting goals that are exactly what you want. You have a built in plan of incremental steps and a timeline plus rituals that are going to ensure success. If you have other strategies, methods, or ideas about goal setting that might help our readership, please share by using the 'Post a comment' feature below this post.
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