Archive for goals
Achieve your goals in the last half of 2011
Posted by: | Comments
Depending on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, the year is half over or there’s half left. Either way, there is still time to achieve great things in 2011.
Step 1. Know where you are now
You can’t achieve anything until you know where you are now so pull up some stats. Print out your financial statement for the first six months of the year.
What? You haven’t done your books for this year because you just finished last year’s taxes? Then you need to take a step back and do step 0 – get your bookkeeping up-to-date! The first rule of business is manage your money!
Next, look at your RSS subscribers, your email newsletter list, daily/monthly visitors to your website or blog, your Facebook friends and likes to your page, your Twitter followers, your LinkedIn connections and what other stats are important to you. Record them on your calendar so you have a measuring stick to go by.
Step 2 Review your goals
Pull out your 2011 goals from January and see how close you are to achieving them. Are there Read More→
The Law of Attraction Strikes Again
Posted by: | CommentsRecently I made a decision to consciously use the Law of Attraction to increase my income. Even though I teach this stuff, I still occasionally need to remind myself to put it into action. I set some goals for the type of income I want and the places I wanted that income to come from. Once of my goals is to do more speaking engagements.
As part of this goal, I’ve been working with a team of local marketing professionals to create a full day marketing workshop called Brand Camp. We’ve been meeting weekly for several months to germinate this idea then work together to implement it.
As the workshop date neared, we started planning what we’d like to do next. Last week we declared a goal of taking our workshop and presenting it in other nearby cities. We hashed out some ideas of where we’d like to present and how we’d market ourselves to achieve this goal.
Less than 24 hours after we set this goal, we were contacted by two people from a nearby city (the same city) about bringing Brand Camp to their town! The same day, I received a call from the coordinator of a conference in yet another city. She’d heard about me and wanted to hire me. In the week since we set that goal, I’ve been asked to speak to a group in Toronto, had an inquiry about advertising on this site, set up a meeting with the mayor and Brand Camp has been asked to set up a second local date.
Thank you Law of Attraction!
Now if you’re read some of my other posts about the Law of Attraction, you know I’m not one of those people who thinks just setting an intention will activate the Law of Attraction. It takes a little more.
How did the Law of Attraction work in this case?
- I created a written goal. It’s a goal I truly want to achieve; it’s not something I think I should want.
- I committed to achieving the goal. This step is the key to the Law of Attraction. Until you can say, “I’m going to make this happen, even if I’m not quite sure how yet,” you’ve made a wish not a goal.
- I shared my goal. In this case part of the goal was working with my Brand Camp colleagues to get our workshop on the road. In any case, publicly stating your goal – even if it’s only to a trusted colleague – adds power to your intention.
- I created a plan for how to achieve the goal.
- I took concrete steps to move closer to the goal.
The really great thing about the Law of Attraction is when you take these steps, often the universe steps in to help you along. Instead of steadily following your plan to achieve your goal, a shortcut drops in your lap. Even though I believe in the Law of Attraction and teach workshops about it, it still freaks me out a little each time it happens.
But it’s really fun when reaching a goal happens easily; when you can skip some of the hard work because an opportunity just lands in your lap. Not only that, but when the Law of Attraction steps in to give you a helping hand, you get energized. You’re ready to take on more goals, reach new heights. It’s a snowball effect.
Andrea J. Stenberg
Do you have a story about how the Law of Attraction helped you reach your goals? Please leave a comment and tell us what happened.
7 More Reasons Goals Are Not Achieved
Posted by: | CommentsSuccess and achieving goals are two topics that have universal appeal. You would think that something that commands the interest of so many people would be understood and used by nearly everyone. However, what I have discovered is that most people make the same mistakes again and again. They never reach their desired outcome. Here are 7 more of the common mistakes that most people make in their quest for improvement and achievement.
1. No written plan. I can give you the statistics of numerous studies that prove people with written goals have great success than those without written plans. Of course both of these groups greatly outperform those with no goals at all! The written plan keeps you on course and clearly identifies when you have completed one step and are ready for the next.
I recently drove from the northeastern United States down to Florida, a 1000 mile drive. There were only 11 key steps to take in that whole journey. My plan simply listed the steps and allowed me to easily reach my destination. The written plan is your map to get from where you are to where you want to be.
2. Failure to focus on a single goal. Multitasking is greatly overrated! The term was probably coined by some overly aggressive Type-A personality. A juggler with six balls in the air must divide his focus on all six balls or one will hit the ground. Goals are not different. If you have multiple goals you are less likely to achieve any of them. Focus on one, complete it, and then move to the next.
3. Not living in the present. You can’t change what occurred yesterday and you can’t predict what will happen tomorrow. Focus on what you can do right now! No more “I wish I had…” or “What if…” games. You can only control what you do in the present, so do something that moves you closer to your primary goal.
4. Confusing activity with productivity. This is a huge misconception in business in general as well as goal achievement. Many assume if they are doing something, it is better than doing nothing. The real question is, does the task you are doing move you closer to your goal. Generally, what we find is the activity being perform is simply easier than the goal task that needs to be completed.
5. Not fully answering the question, why. Why do you want to lose ten pounds or get a better education? Keep asking yourself the why question until you get to the core reason. Does that core reason really excite you? Is the goal really your idea or someone else’s idea. Only goals truly meaningful to you will move you to achievement.
6. Expectations of failure. If you don’t think you will succeed, you will not. A recent championship football game was tied and went into sudden death overtime. When one team lost the flip of the coin, the star of the team could be heard saying, “oh well – game over.” Needless to say the opposing team quickly moved the ball down the field and won the game.
“Think you can or think you can’t. Either one is correct”. Henry Ford
7. Failure to fail. Most of us like to play it safe. However, the greatest success stories almost always have a great story of failure as well. Many never set goals simply so they don’t fail. If you never try, you will never achieve.
Those who walk in other’s footprints will never leave their own mark on the world!
The Top 7 Reasons Why Goals Are Not Achieved can be read at http://www.thecoachacademy.com/resourses.html
Dr. Dennis Hocker is Co-Founder of The Coach Academy.
Dr. Hocker, The Coach’s Coach, trains and mentors hundreds of coaches each month through a series of live training events and webinars. He has successfully established and developed coaching teams in the United States, United Kingdom, European Union, South Africa, Australia, and Canada. He is a Certified Master Mentor, Master Coach, Master Analyst in Axiology, Master Behaviors Coach, Master Values Coach, and a Master Financial Benchmarker. Dr. Hocker has been an advisor to businesses since 1978. The Coach Academy specializes in advanced and niche training for career mentors, advisors, coaches and consultants.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dennis_J._Hocker,_Ph.D.
http://EzineArticles.com/?7-More-Reasons-Goals-Are-Not-Achieved&id=2198390
Get Off the Information Merry-go-Round and Start Implementing What You Know
Posted by: | CommentsFor many small business owners, learning is a key part of becoming successful. No matter how much experience you had in the work world, there will be areas of running a business that are new to you: perhaps accounting, marketing, sales, technology. And worse, technology changes so rapidly that even if you were up to speed when you started your business, if you don’t keep learning you’ll soon fall behind.
The problem with learning is it’s easy to fall into the trap of always looking for more information. And finding more information is always easy. Choose any topic and you can find countless books at the library, in the bookstore and probably on your own shelves. There are also teleseminars, courses, e-courses, tutorials and more.
And many of these learning tools promise knowledge and systems that will make your business run smoother or help you earn more money. And many of these programs deliver on their promises – if you implement what you’ve learned.
And there’s the crux! Too often small business owners get trapped in a cycle of never-ending learning, without ever implementing these new tools, strategies or systems.
For many entrepreneurs, the reason we are in business is because we’re insatiably curious. We want to learn more, do more. We have a love of knowledge.
But if we’re spending countless dollars – and hours – learning new things for our business but never seeing results, we’re wasting our money and our time. Like everything else in our businesses, we need to see a return on our investment.
So why do we sometimes get on the learning merry-go-round without implementing what we learn? Read More→
What Types of Goals Are You Setting?
Posted by: | CommentsBecause we are beginning a new year, it seems natural for many of us to set new goals for our business. We set goals to earn X dollars this year, or to increase our email list by Y percent. We do this because we know our goals need to be measurable so we know when we achieved them.
When I was speaking with my coach earlier this week she pointed out that these types of goals are known as outcome goals – based on getting a certain result. The problem with outcome goals is ultimately they are outside of your control.
Yes, you can do things like provide excellent service, have competitive prices and marketing like crazy to increase your chances of achieving an outcome goal. However, the final decision to buy is not in your hands. And all sorts of things outside your control can impact the outcome: a competitor’s fire sale, a downturn in the economy, a new product competing with yours, the weather.
The downside to this is when you don’t achieve an outcome goal because of factors outside your control, it is easy to loose your motivation and enthusiasm.
Does this mean we should stop setting outcome goals? No. They can be motivational and are easy to measure. But we also need to set other types of goals. Specifically, performance goals and process goals.
Performance goals, also known as mastery goals, are about how you perform. They measure how good you are at what you do. Since you are comparing your current performance to past performance and measuring improvement, this type of goal is entirely within your control. Even when you don’t achieve an outcome goal, you can achieve a performance goal related to the same area.
Process goals are how you are going to do certain things, usually how you are going to achieve your outcome goals. What specific actions will you take? Like performance goals, process goals are entirely within your control.
How does this work in your business?
Suppose you set an outcome goal of selling an additional $5,000 this quarter. You might set a performance goal for yourself to become a better salesperson. Becoming better at closing sales will make it easier for you to achieve your outcome goal.
To achieve your outcome goal you will also want to set process goals. Suppose you know from past experience that the average new customer spends $500 with you. To achieve your outcome goal you will likely need ten new customers. Also suppose that for every ten cold calls you make, you get an average of one new client. Based on past experience, you would likely need to make 100 cold calls to get ten new clients and earn that additional $5,000.
Therefore your outcome goal is $5,000. Your performance goal is to improve your sales skills and your process goal is to make 100 cold calls.
At the end of the quarter if you made your 100 cold calls and found that your improved sales skills meant you landed 15 new clients instead of the projected ten you could be very happy with having achieved your process and performance goals. But if the slower economy meant your new clients spent $250 each instead of the $500 past performance has projected, you would still not have achieved your outcome goal.
If you review your goals and find that you have mostly outcome goals, you might want to consider adding a few performance and process goals to your list.
Andrea J. Stenberg
