Let’s move away from the typical goal setting fodder we’ve all read… and have some FUN!

I’ve learned working with hundreds of consultants, small business and clients that we can never assume that goal setting is a simple or easily understood process. Most businesses never bother to create tangible, quantifiable goals. Or they set a few massive goals and have no milestones for measuring and celebrating progress.

So here’s a simple approach to goal setting that keeps it fun and focused on the things that REALLY matter…

The Ten Commandments of Goal Setting

Goals are thrown around in meetings and trainings like Mickey Mouse is at Disney Land.

There’s just one problem though: most people don’t know how many elements go into setting proper goals, because a goal is more than an amount you want to see in your bank account… or a number of clients you want to hit.

Our goals define us and we must therefore be careful to define our goals. With care. With love. With integrity.

You see the funny thing about goals that I had to learn the hard way is that it’s really easy to set them too high. As we quickly feel the sting of that whip we sometimes switch to setting our goals too low. We either feel beat up or bored.

The key to creating effective goals is to know that…

Rather than simply be the measuring stick for your achievement, each goal can and must serve as a vehicle that gets you there. When we build strategy into our model for the results we want to achieve we move into a powerful creation process where we align our vision with our actions and our intent. This is a potent recipe for success – and in such a simple formula!

In the below Commandments of Goal Setting, I will lay out for you the 10 tenants of effective goal setting that you can use to structure your own goals and milestones for transforming your life as well as your consultancy or business.

You’ll notice that I address personal goals as well as professional goals. This is because we do not build businesses in a vacuum. Whether you like it or not you will have to build your business within the framework of your current life. When that becomes difficult you must either change your professional goals to accommodate your personal environment… or you must change your personal environment and hence achieve goals you set for yourself there.

Said another way, you cannot expect to grow your business without also growing yourself. The good news is that success in one area will flow into another area. So read through the following 10 Commandments of Goal Setting. Then download our goal worksheet to create your own goals.

More powerful than any goal you set is the passion you have for what you want, what you do, and who you are. Ever notice that you set goals for the things you don’t want to do, but feel you must do? Yet the activities you absolutely relish somehow get done on their own…

Too many businesses perish in the absence of the passion that birthed them. Particularly for those of us who turn to freelance consulting to further our aims in other areas… you cannot lose sight of what you’re here for. Know what fire burns bright in your chest… the warrior heart that beats for your cause.

What do you stand for? What is the beauty you see in the world that you wish to share… and what is the suffering you seek to snuff out?

Know the answers to these questions. They are worth spending time on.

COMMANDMENT TWO:
Thou Shalt Be Realistic

In case you don’t know this yet about me, I’m a dreamer. I’m a hopeless idealist and I’m relatively confident that I’ll get whatever I want.

Would you say I’m ripe for disappointment? I’ll tell you I have earned BFF status with Lady Disappointment for the years I spent close at her side. Lucky for me, I learned the art of realism without riding that slippery slope down into pessimism.

I suggest you do the same.

The danger in goal setting can be in setting our goals too high, or without considering the reality of our daily existence. If your goal is to launch your professional website in two weeks, during your goal brainstorm that may have made sense. Yet if you are a parent of two little ones… have a day job… or you have to learn how to build that website in those two weeks and you’ve yet to discover WordPress… these are all circumstances that will affect your progress and they need to be thought through and accounted for when you set your goal.

And what about financial goals?

You aren’t the only one who’s set financial goals out of sheer necessity or threat of homelessness – I know all too well what that’s like. Sometimes we need that $7,000 in 24 hours and there can be no ifs, ands or buts about it.

What then?

In case you’re in a situation like this right now, let me share what’s worked for me…

Ask yourself: How many ways can I make this inevitable?Come up with 3 to 7 rock-solid plans for earning the income you need in the amount of time you have. Make sure each plan, in and of itself would hit your goal. Then execute all of them. This way even if some of them fall short, you’ve planned ahead for that and should effectively reach your goal.

Never confuse realism with pessimism. Give your goal the reality check it deserves… and only do so after you’re crystal clear on how deliciously inevitable reaching that goal is for you now!

Also I can’t stress enough the power of the question: “How can I make this inevitable?”

Another aspect of being realistic that I want to mention: Only set goals that are within your circle of influence.  This is one of Stephen Covey’s ’7 Habits of Highly Effective People.’

This means that we recognize what is beyond our control. We cannot control how another person will react to us. We cannot control whether a client will say yes to closing the deal. We cannot control how much someone will love us, what actions they’ll take, or whether they’ll come around to our point of view.

So when you language your goal it’s important to position the goal around you, your actions, your behaviors and skills… your reactions and experience.

As an example: instead of promising yourself that your relationship with your teen will drastically improve in the next year, promise yourself that you will take the actions necessary for you to be the mother or father your teen desires.

This means discovering what your teen desires – even if it’s not what you want to hear or believe. It means giving to another person what you so desperately wish they’d give you… often (at least initially) in the absence of what you wish they’d give.

And be open to the various ways life will deliver your results and desires.  They won’t often look quite the way you expect or want them to.

COMMANDMENT THREE:
Thou Shalt Be Value-Driven

I’ve been fascinated by the utter lack of conversation around Values when building and marketing a business.  I’m not dissing it… there’s a LOT to cover in making a business work. However we are destined to struggle and probably fail when we lose sight of our beliefs and values.

This goes beyond knowing what the rights and wrongs are of your business. What I’m talking about here are the values and beliefs you stand for professionally. Do you know the value behind every decision you make? Do you know what value you’re moving toward when going after a particular goal?

These are questions you’ll want to start asking yourself. For every goal, know what value it’s carrying you toward. For example, if your goal is financial, the value behind it may be Success or To Provide.

Another spin on this is to ask yourself for each goal: “What value must I hold highest in order to reach this goal?” Make sure to reprioritize your values so that those necessary to your goals are in your Top 10.

Example: Weight Loss

Let’s say you set a goal to lose 10 lbs. in the next month. That goal might be associated with your values for Health and Balance… or perhaps Self Love & Care.

Though your motivation for losing weight may be to fit into your old pair of jeans, it’s crucial to realize that the goal itself is about being healthy and balanced.  To reach your goal without losing sight of those values, you cannot starve yourself, exercise too much, or yo-yo back and forth between healthy food and junk (the leading causes of failed diets).

Instead, you outline a diet and exercise strategy that keeps you balanced and healthy—you’re not kidding yourself with thoughts of, “I won’t eat ANY junk food for the next month,” because that would not be balanced.  Instead, you tell yourself, “I will eat a reasonable amount of my chosen treat once in a while, balancing that out with my favorite healthy foods and moderate exercise.”

COMMANDMENT FOUR:
Thou Shalt Be Detailed

Just having the goal itself is almost never enough. The most effective goals are designed so that you know the goal, the date by which you will achieve it, the quantity by which you will measure it (is “rich” $100,000 or $500,000?), and how it will change your life.  For example, which of the two goals below is more useful to you?

Goal #1: My teenage daughter and I will be best friends within the next year.

Goal #2: By April 22^nd, one year from today, I will be the best Mom I can be in order to encourage my daughter to confide in me and view me as a close friend.  I will listen to her whenever she has anything to say, I’ll ask her questions that show I’m interested but not trying to pry.  I’ll respect her privacy and show her I trust her, and I will allow her to confide in me her mistakes without constantly reprimanding her.  I will do all this while still being a responsible parent.

The nice thing about Goal #2 is that stated within the goal we have our road map for success.  We know the date by which we will succeed, rather than a vague time frame we can always push back.  We know which actions we must take (and we can only concentrate on our own actions) and we know the exact response we want that signifies success (daughter confiding and accepting mother as a close friend).

COMMANDMENT FIVE:
Thou Shalt Plan

As you saw in the previous commandment, our goals are getting very specific and detailed. This is fantastic! However what makes success inevitable is the strategic plan of attack we create and execute.

My favorite method for doing this is to reverse-engineer my goal by asking myself, “What had to happen for me to reach this goal?” Rather than start from where you’re at, start from the end and work backwards. For example, using the goal above, the end result is that your teenager confides all her secrets to you.  The logical thing that must occur in order for that to happen is that she trusts you. That’s your second to last step.  To earn her trust, you have to listen, and allow her to tell you her mistakes without reprimanding her.  That’s your third to last step.

Your first time through, your steps may seem very common sense and broad.  However, as you start to execute your plan, you’ll start to see the big picture more clearly, and you’ll realize all the hidden steps necessary for you to take the next big step. So try to see your plan as a living blueprint that you continue to revise, refine and flesh out.

The other way to look at this commandment is the concept of “Two Creations.”  Everything is created twice—the blue print before the building, the business plan before the company, the outline before the book, the dream before the reality.  By coming from the end, you have already created what you want for yourself.  All you have left to do is get your reality up to speed.  If you don’t consciously create the first creation, someone or something else will, and the second creation—your reality—will be out of your control.

Okay, that’s it for Part I! You can read Part II here.

WHAT IF I HELPED YOU PERSONALLY WITH YOUR BIG GOALS?

I have just opened my schedule to accept one-on-one coaching clients. However I can only accept 10 people. There are 7 spots left at the time of this writing.

You can check out the details here!

I’ve saved and made tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars for people with just 30 minutes of my time and advice.

Imagine what we could accomplish together if you had one hour a  week of dedicated time with me? That doesn’t even include the multi-hour session you and I will have to kick everything off! We’ll have a hard-hitting strategy session that will include goal setting, visioning, personal and business progress mapping and more.

And you know how I roll… we’ll have such a rampant good time while we’re doing it all, you won’t even think it’s work!