I recently overheard someone reply, when asked about her holiday weekend, “It was successful. My New Year’s resolution is to overeat on every major holiday. I figure I’m going to do it anyway; why not make it a goal I can actually keep?” I had to laugh. It made me think about the goals we create in our lives and in our businesses. Many fall into one of two major categories. The first category is goals we set that we have a 95 percent chance of accomplishing–mostly because we have done it before, so the likelihood is high that we’ll succeed. (Our overeater above almost didn’t pig out because she was feeling poorly. But she pulled herself together and gorged.) The other category is goals where there is a 95 percent degree of uncertainty that we’ll accomplish them, and we have never done it before, but we would like to. There are benefits to both kinds of goals. You might think the first kind of goal is for slackers, but there is some value in setting goals that you’re confident you’ll achieve. Using that confidence as a springboard for trying new things can be a useful thing–kind of like doing the perfect swan dive as a warm-up for an Olympic-caliber diver. The problem is if you stop at those, you don’t get to really compete with the big dogs. Let’s dive into the second kind of goal–the uncertain one. Goal-setting has been written about every which way. This article is a little bit about setting, but more about accomplishing the goal. The kind of goals you set is certainly important, but for the sake of brevity, I’m going to assume you’re setting an uncertain goal that has some reasonable chance of success. The human brain is set up to help you achieve goals that you sincerely believe are achievable. If you want to stretch yourself or your business to new heights, here are my thoughts on goal-setting and goal-getting. Dream, but be motivated. It’s OK to dream and have big goals. But if you’re actually going to accomplish them, you have to DO something about them, and that takes motivation. The very first thing you need to achieve a goal is a reason and deep desire to achieve it. The path to achieving goals is fraught with boredom, excuses and difficulty. You will have a lot of opportunities to talk yourself out of the goal. But if you can keep going back to the reason and your desire for the goal, those will help you stay on track. Break it down into 24-hour bites. The brain has a built in B.S. monitor that rings out when all you do is set an enormous goal but then don’t manage it to 24-hour cycles–daily mini goals. If your goal is to shed 50 pounds, your brain doesn’t see you 50 pounds lighter in 24 hours, but it can see you five ounces lighter in that time. Set your goals so that your [...]
