Thanks you for subscribing to the Keys for Success Email Newsletter. Here's is your free report on Goal Setting for Success.   Goal Setting for Success By Carol Gegner The purpose of this report is to offer ideas to help you become more successful, professionally and personally. You will find strategies and techniques you can use to get what you want. Your task will be to apply the ideas to your business and life. Goal setting is definitely not a new concept. I'm sure you've read about it countless times before. Goal setting seems to elude most of us even though we recognize its benefits. It has been found that only 3% of us actually practice the art of goal setting! It turns out goal setting is a significant factor in determining success. According to a study quoted in Success Is Not An Accident by Tommy Newberry, Harvard University surveyed business school graduates in 1979. They found that 84 percent of the class had no goals other than to enjoy themselves. Thirteen percent had goals and plans but had not written them down. The final 3 percent had written goals with a plan of action. Ten years later in 1989 Harvard resurveyed the class. The results showed the 13 percent with goals in their head were earning two times as much as the other 84 percent The 3 percent with written goals and action plans were earning ten times as much as the other 97 percent combined. Those statistics are hard to ignore! Olympic athletes are a prime example of success derived from goal setting. Each athlete has the larger, long-term goal of going to the Olympics. To get there, they use short-term goals to monitor their progress and evaluate their performance. They also work with a coach who gives them feedback and keeps them challenged. The long-term goal is their dream but it's the daily practice and repetition that gets them to the Olympics. They live and breathe their goals every day in an effort to reach their dream. Achieving your dreams requires the same strategy and techniques used by athletes. First you need to have a dream and create a vision of what you want. Then you establish goals and action plans to guide your decisions and behaviors. As we saw from the Harvard study writing down those goals and action plans on how to achieve those goals is a key to success. Why not become one of the 3 percent who achieve their dreams. Goal setting for success requires that you answer the following three questions: (1) What do I want? (2) Why do I want it? (3) How will I get it? What you want is unique and special to you. What is your dream? Do you want financial security, a larger house or newer car? Do you want to work fewer hours? Do you want to compete in a triathlon? Having a compelling dream will enhance your commitment to the process. The dream answers the "why" question. Is financial security tied into your dream of retiring earlier? Does working fewer hours mean you can spend more time with your family? Has your family outgrown your current house and car? The "what" do you want and "why" do you want it are different sides of the same coin! Now we come to the "how will you get what you want" question. That's where the strategies and techniques for goal setting for success come into play. Without goals how are you going to get what you want? Goals are the roadmap to guide you in the right direction. Goals become your personal global positioning system. When faced with what road to take, you have the answer because you have designed your roadmap. You know what direction you are traveling. Imagine how much easier it is to make decisions when you always know what road and direction to take. You can begin to taste, feel and see your dream because every step you take moves you closer to that dream. So let's look at how to make goal setting easy. Remember, goals need to be SMART. That is they need to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound. Let's take the simple example of losing weight. Specifically, what is the total weight do you want to lose? Make it measurable by tracking your weekly weight loss. Have you created an environment conducive to attaining your weight? Examples are joining a weight loss program, eating nutritious meals, and adding a little exercise to your life. Is your weekly goal amount realistic? Five pounds a week isn't realistic! How much time are you giving yourself to lose that weight? Is it six weeks, six months or one-year. It needs to be realistic time frame for the amount of total weight you want to lose. Now you can set short-term weekly goals to help you reach your long-term goal of weight loss. Chunking down goals into bite size pieces certainly increases an "I can do that attitude". When your reason for losing weight is compelling you'll find those short-term goals easy to achieve. Although the above example sounds simple, those same principles can apply to everything else you do in your business and in your life. I used the same process for training to compete in a marathon. I've used it to focus on what is most important to grow my business. How can you apply it to your business and your life? All you have to do is start with identifying what you want, why you want it and then set goals for how to get what you want. What keeps people from setting goals? I have found three psychological fears that hold people back from taking control of their success. First is the fear of failure. What happens if we don't attain our goals? What will others say about us or think about us. We see failures as a failure instead of a learning experience. How can we win if we don't try? The fear of failure is fed by the unconscious thought, "If I don't try, then I can't fail." The fear of failure is probably the biggest obstacle for setting goals. Second is the fear of criticism. Have you ever told someone your dream and they squash it with negative remarks? Parents unknowingly do it to children trying to protect them from disappointments. When that happens over and over we stop creating dreams. We quit thinking outside the box and imagining what might be possible. Instead we accept the status quo because we fear criticism. The third fear is fear of success! People fail to set goals because of this fear. Success means standing out above the others. Many are uncomfortable in that position. Maybe my friends won't accept me; they'll think I'm too good for them and I won't fit in. Does success mean I'll have to continue being successful constantly striving to do more and more? So we sabotage our success by not setting goals to help us succeed. We fall into the 84 percent of the Harvard study! Goal setting is sometimes not enough for some individuals. They need support and encouragement to change and enhance their performance. In my research on executive coaching (an executive summary can be found on this site.) I found studies and literature reviews by Locke and Latham (1981 and 1991) indicating the need for feedback to make goal setting effective. Goal setting by itself is motivational, gives direction and provides strategies for change. Adding feedback gives goal setting another dimension. Locke and Latham concluded from their research that when goals and feedback are used together performance improves. Goals represent the desired outcomes being sought and the standard for evaluating one's performance. Feedback then provides information related to the standard. They also found individuals with higher goals performed better than those with lower goals. Their review of goal setting literature found individuals with specific harder goals performed better than individuals with vague goals or no goals. That finding seems to support the Harvard survey! As an executive coach I would be remiss in not adding that information to this report. A major benefit of coaching is getting objective feedback about your performance, behaviors, and actions. If setting SMART goals isn't working for you, try adding feedback to your efforts. You can ask a friend, an associate, a mentor, or hire a coach. There is nothing magical about goal setting. Each and every one of us has the ability to do it if we have a dream and we decide to make that dream come true. Join the three percent group by writing down your goals and action plans and then follow your personally designed road map to reach your dreams. I will leave you with this quote. "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." J.W. Goethe. Contact us today! Just send an email to info@coachexecs.com or call our office headquarters located in Northern California at (925)933-1051.