I’m no expert on goal setting, but 2006 has been the best goal setting/goal achieving year EVER. Thought I’d share 25 of the gems I’ve learned…
1. Brian Tracy, one of the world’s foremost experts on setting and achieving goals, explains the following fact: less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals, and less than 1 percent review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis. Which means if you’re doing both, you’re WAY ahead of the game.
2. Whatever your present goals are, they’re too low.
3. Read your personal and professional goals every morning.
4. Create a Vision Board and look at it every morning. A vision board is a collage of pictures that represent your accomplished goals, as if they’ve already happened. Creative visualization. Forward thinking. This stuff works.
5. Tell your goals to other people. This keeps you accountable.
6. Make a list of 101 goals. It’s tough, but this exercise will change your life.
7. In your bathroom, put post-it notes of your goals on the mirror. Personal on the left, professional on the right. That way, you HAVE to look at them twice a day.
8. Set daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals.
9. Every week, make yourself a list called “Criticals.” These are your Top 5 Goals for the Week. If you can accomplish these every week, you will also achieve your larger goals over time.
10. Every single day, perform three Highly Valuable Activities. They don’t have to be business, per se. From “working out” to “writing an article” to “meeting my new client in person,” these small things will accumulate. Think about it. 25 a week, 50 weeks a year, that’s 1,250 a year. Wow.
11. Each year, have one major, HUGE goal. Let’s say it’s: “I will make 1 million dollars this year.” Write the term “one million” on a bunch of post it notes. Put them all around your office.
12. Buy a little bell and ring it every time you accomplish a goal, big or small.
13. If a bell’s not enough, create some form of victory dance. Now, you don’t have to do an actual dance (although Snoopy had a great celebration dance), but something that rewards you for a job well done. Me, I like to go out for sushi.
(And now for Scott’s Favorite Goal Setting Tip…)
14. Put a little card by your desk that says, “Is what you’re doing RIGHT NOW consistent with your #1 goal?” I did this a few years ago and it absolutely kicked my goat setting into high gear.
15. My friend once bet me $20 that I would achieve my yearly revenue goal. I took the bet. By August, I had already passed it. So, I took a twenty-dollar bill, framed it, then wrote on it: “Thanks for helping me achieve my goal!” He loved it. (I just hope he never has to break the glass to spend it!)
16. What people don’t realize about goals is that they have to be VISUAL!!!
17. Be specific and put a timeline on all of your goals. It dramatically increases the possibility that they will be accomplished. For example, “I will weigh no more than 195 pounds by December 14, 2006.”
18. When you list your goals, also list the following: barriers that will stand in my way of achieving that goal, people that will help me with that goal and reasons I will accomplish that goal
19. Begin with the end in mind
20. Hang out with other people who set, share and accomplish goals. If the people you see the most aren’t in that small percent of the world that writes their goals down, either MAKE them do it, or get new friends.
21. Have a goal partner. The two of you share updates on progress, goal accomplishments and anything else relating to goals.
22. The best weekly goal tip I ever got was to divide my time into 5 sections: to do, to contact, to see, to read and to write. If I could cross everything and everyone off that list by the end of the week, I was successful.
24. Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul talk about setting one BHAG, or “Big Harry Audacious Goal.” What’s yours?
25. And lastly, don’t just share your goals with a few people. Share as many of your goals as possible with as many people as possible.
You know, I think the real reason all this goal stuff has been on my mind is because I FINALLY read Paulo Coello’s The Alchemist. (By the way, if you are in any way involved with goal setting, read that book TODAY.)
Anyway, the keystone of his message is the following: when you know what you want, the world will conspire to help you achieve it.
LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What are your three best goal setting tips? Post them here.
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Scott Ginsberg
Author/Speaker/That Guy with the Nametag
www.hellomynameisscott.com
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