If you have no concrete goals and you have been succeeding in spite of yourself, just think how much more success you could enjoy if you set your sights on a definite path and had a specific time-frame in which you expect to reach your destination.

Even though you do not need to set goals in order to reach some level of success, most professionals who fail to set goals reach a plateau and lack either the motivation or the direction to go beyond it. They are unable to move upwards to a higher achievement status.

Setting Goals Keeps You Focussed What you should know is that goals give you three distinct advantages, which help you succeed:

-Goals Keep You on Track

-Goals Let You Know When and What to Celebrate

-Goals Give You a Focussed Plan to Work With

If nothing else, goals let others know what they have to aim for to keep up with your standards!!!

Effective Goal Setting Take the time to think about what would make you happy, contented and satisfied and about what would motivate you to become a Top 5% Player.

Its important to remember that goals are maps; they will guide you towards your success - the more detailed your goal setting the easier it will be for you to reach your destination.

When you are in the first stage of goal setting you also need to remember two important factors - i.e.

-The Goal Must Be Better Than Your Best Yet - But It Must Be Achievable

-Goals Should Be Based On Productivity Not Production

Keeping these two rules of goal setting firmly in your mind will help you to form and stay committed to what is really important to you.

Time Yourself - By Months, Years & Decades

Always begin with long-term goals and work backwards. Your long-term goals are probably the most difficult to set anyway, so if you set those first, you accomplish the tough stuff right up-front.
Long-term goals should be five-year projections and three areas you may want to consider when you set them are personal accomplishments, status symbols and net worth.
Medium-term goals are usually three year projections and the same criteria can be used - but again think productivity not production and consider the activity that will be necessary to achieve success.
Short-term goals will demand most of your attention and these are usually a twelve-month projection although you can set immediate goals which have a 90-day projection.

You Must Believe You Can Achieve All of Your Goals - Otherwise You Will Not Achieve Them.

Setting a Well Balanced Diet of Goals

It is essential to set personal as well as career goals to keep your life well balanced. If all your goals are connected to your commercial life, you will have trouble taking time out for family and friends because you will always be pushing towards the next career goal.

Remember Work SMARTER Not HARDER

A Healthy Body = A Healthy Mind = A Healthy Body

Setting Personal Goals Gives You A Life In And After Business.

Put Your Goals in Writing

Once you have formulated your goals it is time to make your final commitment to them by putting them down in writing. This is undoubtedly the single most important step in goal setting because until they are inscribed somewhere they are merely wishes and dreams.

After you have written them down, your mind will start seeking out whatever it will take to make them a reality.

Remember the moment you start moving forward towards a goal is the moment you start to succeed.

Setting S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Goals

Once you have identified your goals you need to ensure that they are

S. M. A. R. T. E. R. i.e.

. S = SPECIFIC
Ensure they are not Vague but they state exactly what you want to achieve. Narrow it down to the most detailed level you can.

M = MEASURABLE

How will you know when youve succeeded? Find some way to measure what change has taken place, unless you can monitor progress how will you know if youve been successful?

A = ACHIEVABLE

Be realistic, but do aim to stretch yourself. Too low and you will not have a challenge. Too high can cause demotivation and disappointment.

R = RELEVANT
It is essential that your goals are personally meaningful. Doing it for yourself will make you feel proud and satisfied when you achieve it.

T = TIMED

Set realistic time targets. Are you able to identify when you expect to have achieved your goals by?

E = EXCITING
This should ensure that it will stimulate you into action. If it doesnt you may opt for the status quo

R = RECORDED
Writing your goals down serves to form a contract with yourself. Written goals can be reviewed and modified and you can carry them around as a permanent reminder or show them to other people.

These are the stages you should now follow to create your New Direction.

Stage 1: Complete a S.L.O.T. analysis. This will help you to understand your current status

Stage 2: Design a personal Business Plan for yourself with the following components.
A Mission Statement
Critical Success Factors
1, 3 and 5 Year Projections

Stage 3: Check all your goals and objectives are S.M.A.R.T.E.R . Stage 4: Begin today - set Personal Improvement Objectives for the next twelve-months

In summary if you follow these four steps in goal achieving you will be on the straight and narrow road to success.

Goals Must Be In Writing
Goals Must Be Vividly Imagined
Goals Must Be Ardently Desired
Goals Must Be Sincerely Committed

Lets move to Stage 1.

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Edmund Burke

A technique used widely in business to evaluate situations is the SLOT analysis.

SLOT stands for:

Strengths Limitations Opportunities Threats

(SLOT this is the American version British people talk about SWOT analysis where W stands for weakness Id rather talk about a persons limitations.)

The SLOT analysis can be an extremely useful technique for you to think about what you can offer relative to your external environment and helps you to take stock of your position so that you can plan your future development.

The Strengths and Limitations elements are personal to you. Opportunities and Threats lie in the external environment.

Use the forms on the next pages to build up your own SLOT analysis it will probably take a few days so do some work on it and keep coming back to it.

Use your SLOT analysis to:

Identify how you can maximise the use of your strengths
See how you can compensate for your limitations
Identify opportunities, particularly ones that may not be immediately obvious
If at all possible, see if threats can be turned into opportunities

S = Strengths
What can I do well? What are my best skills and attributes? Where do I have the greatest talent? (Try to illustrate your ideas with concrete examples.)

L = Limitations
What am I less good at? (In which aspects of your work and personal life do you need improvement? Is the improvement needed large or small?)

O = Opportunities
What is currently happening that can give me the opportunity for personal growth and improved performance? As technology changes and society advances what new opportunities will occur that I can take advantage of?

T = Threats
What changes or forces may affect my current situation or act as a barrier to future development? Which people might get in the way? How could I sabotage my own development?

Stage 2

Imagine you are contemplating starting your own business and you need to present your investors or your bank manager with a detailed business plan. Your first stage might be a mission statement - a statement of intent that describes what you hope to achieve within the next x number of years i.e.

My mission statement is to become the most successful and personally fulfilled salesperson in my companys history

Once you have developed your mission statement you need to build in the C.S.F.s - Critical Success Factors. These are objectives you must achieve if you are to meet your mission statement - i.e.

I must exceed my sales target by a minimum of 125% in the next 3 years
I must ensure I have a proper balance between work and leisure in order to maintain optimum performance levels and stay fresh etc. etc.

The key word in a CSF is must but try not to set more than six CSFs

Stage 3 The third stage is to measure all of your goals and objectives against S.M.A.R.T.E.R.

I.e. are your goals -

S = SPECIFIC

M = MEASURABLE

A = ACHIEVABLE

R = RELEVANT

T = TIMED

E = EXCITING

R = RECORDED

Stage 4
Now set your Personal Improvement Objectives for the next twelve months.

Do remember that the harder you work towards a goal the sweeter the taste of success. We know that the road to success can be bumpy but if you are determined and enthusiastic about your goals you will not waiver. Your resolve will help you to keep a picture in your mind of what you want and how you will make it happen.

Do take all of your goals extremely seriously, no matter how small and reward yourself for each milestone you reach - You can even start today by congratulating yourself for starting the process of improving your life and taking control of your own destiny.

If you want your life to change, then you have to change it or you are going to stay pretty much the same as you are.

Remember:
You can change and become anything you want - every journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step.

Why not take that first step today?

The moral right of the author, Jonathan Farrington, has been asserted. All rights reserved. This publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system or otherwise, unless this notification of copyright is retained.