Believe it or not “2008” is over. The New Year is just around the corner.
Successful professionals take this time to reflect on last year’s wins and to set powerful, fulfilling and hopeful goals to kick-start a great new year.
Two ways to use this newsletter
- This could be used as an independent newsletter on goal setting and goal achieving
- This newsletter could be used as an extension to the life balance Newsletter (Sept 2008)
Either way, you will find this newsletter as a powerful tool to start the 2009 New Year with.
Goal setting works for those who do it correctly. Study after study have shown over the years that SMART Goal setting model works and if coupled with an “ecology” check from the field of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), achieving the goals become inevitable.
Ecology Check
Ecology check means going over your goals to make sure that they fit well in your overall life. Goals should be complementary and supportive of each other and not contradictory and destructive to each other.
For example, setting a career goal that would require you to spend more time in the office might have negative consequences on your other goal of spending more time with your family.
So, before you set any goals make sure the goal is right for you and right for your life right now. A way to do that is to do the life balance assessment from Sept 2008 and based on that assessment pick the appropriate goals for the appropriate areas of your life.
If you are confident you have the right goal(s) then proceed.
SMART GOALS
To make your goals inevitable and bound to manifest, I encourage you to go over your goals and make sure they fit the SMART Goals criteria.
Its easy to do and you can do it now in only three minutes or less. Get a piece a paper and a pen and write down your goal or goals. Then run down the criteria below and rewrite your goal to make it match the SMART criteria.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Accountable
- Realistic
- Timely
(S)pecific
A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the five “W” questions:
Who: Who is involved?
What: What do I want to accomplish?
Where: Where is my location and Company?
When: What is my time frame?
Why: Specific reasons, higher purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goalEXAMPLE
A general goal would be, “Get promoted.”
A specific goal would say, “I am working as a supervisor at Tax-Ex Inc by June 15th 2010.”
(M)easurable
Establish concrete “sensory” criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of the goal you set.
To determine if your goal is measurable ask yourself how will I know that I have achieve my goal, what sensory based evidence will I have? Or if someone is following me with a camera, what would the camera record at the moment of achieving the goal.
(A)ccountable
Accountability works because we tend to honor our words more when somebody else is holding us accountable.
It’s a well known fact in the coaching industry, that people perform better when they are accountable to their coach.
So who are you going to be accountable for? It can be your friends, your partner, your manager, or who ever you see fit.
Make sure you are accountable to somebody who will always keep you on track and help you keep your eyes on the ball.
For more information on accountability check out the coaching option available to you through Ovson Communications.
(R)ealistic
To achieve a goal it has to be realistic in terms of expectations. You and only you would know what is realistic for you.
Henry Ford once said: “whether you believe you can or you can’t you are right.” You have to believe that you can initiate and achieve the goal.
You can’t set goals and expect somebody else to achieve them for you. The goal must be self-initiated and self-attainable.
It’s usually good to stretch beyond what you think is realistic so you can expand your comfort zone. I encourage my coaching client to go 5% more of what they think is realistic.
(T)imely
A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there’s no sense of urgency. If you want to get a raise, when do you want it by? Someday won’t work.
But if you anchor it within a timeframe, “by April 1st 2040″ then you’ve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.
What’s next?
Good luck with you goals and happy New Year
Your Coaches,
Alan Ovson and Peter Khoury.
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