Goal Setting Like a Champion – Everything You Need to Know – Part 1
“The road to success and the road to failure are almost exactly the same.”
Colin R. Davis
Successor Failure?
Here’s a question for you: which road did you decide to take?
And here’s another!
How often, as a business owner, do you find yourself thinking: “where did I go wrong?”
As we approach the end of the year, many people only now begin reflecting on how the last 12 months have played out. What did 2020 hold for you? For your business? For your career?
Now, granted, it’s been an unusual year!
But if you are anything like 93% of business owners and career professionals in the UK, you won’t have achieved your goals.
You’ll be sitting there wondering what went wrong. Mulling over how you lost your focus. Thinking about how you can shake things up in 2021.
And let’s be brutally honest…you probably said the exact same thing last year, didn’t you?
And yet here you are, right back where you started. No further forward, no better off.
So why does this happen? What’s the underlying issue?
Happily, I can tell you it’s one of two things.
Either…
You didn’t set any goals for the year.
Or…
You failed to correctly set, define, and pursue your goals with consistency and focus.
Hard Truths
Now you may be reading this thinking “I tried my best! It wasn’t my fault! Everything conspired against me!”
Aye, right.
Think about it. Really think about it.
Did you actually try your best, or were you just caught up, doing stuff?
Reacting? Being busy without knowing where you were headed? Careering off without a defined destination?
Suppose you’re feeling uncomfortable – good! It means you’re ready, to be honest with yourself.
You got stuck in your own action vortex.
What’s an action vortex?
Think about it this way. The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and getting the same results.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.
It’s Called a Rut
Now, look – I know you’re trying your best. We all are, in our own way.
But without anything to focus our actions on, it’s like trying to shoot a target in the dark with a blindfold on.
Keep shooting, and eventually, you might hit something…or you could just turn on the bloody light!
If you want to succeed, you need to set goals.
Without goals, you will lack focus and direction. It doesn’t work any other way.
Goal setting not only allows you to take control of the direction you’re heading in; it also provides you with a benchmark that helps you measure your success. And if you can measure it? You can manage it.
The power really is within you.
Question Time:
Why are success and failure so similar?
They both take motivation, effort, thought and action. The difference is that the quality of the actions you take is what determines the results you get.
But let’s also be real. It’s hard to achieve our goals!
More often than not, we fail to follow through.
Either we lose focus, change our minds, or give up. For one reason or another, things get in the way, and our mentality shifts, life happens, and we just stop trying.
You know the feeling, don’t you?
We’ve all failed to achieve one goal or another at some point in our lives.
I’ve definitely been there – more times than I’d like to admit!
But the most interesting thing isn’t really whether or not we’ve “failed” – it’s the why behind the failure.
Then why is everything? And the why applies even after (maybe especially when!) we achieve our goals.
When most people reach a goal, they stop trying. That’s it! They’re done. They’ve achieved their goal.
Sounds like a recipe for complacency to me.
So why do we throw in that proverbial towel – whether it was before meeting a goal, or after?
Did we fail because we didn’t consider our tipping points? Did we fail to put a plan in place to counteract something we knew would be a challenge? Did we decide not to set a stretch goal? Why?
The answer lies in the asking. This is why “why?” is such a potent question.
A New Tool for Your Kit
The one thing that will keep you committed when it comes to defining and setting your goals is solid, honest preparation.
You have to prepare for the buts, the what-ifs, the whys behind your previous failures. And you prepare by building them into clearly defined action plans.
All too often, we rely on pure motivation and excitement to see us through.
In the beginning, we’re excited about the changes we want to make, and the thrill of doing something new!
But over time, that focus and determination wane (usually right around the moment you realise that actually, achieving goals is damned hard work – and that this work requires discipline, guts, and determination to face down the difficulties that lie between you and your biggest dreams).
So how do you find the success you’re dreaming of?
Specificity is the Key
All success and failure starts with your mindset.
Does success happen by chance, luck, or coincidence?
Success never has, and never will be created by chance, luck, or coincidence.
All success happens because of specifics. Namely – specific actions that you take to get a specific set of results.
Setting clearly defined, specific goals helps you create both motivation and discipline needed to pursue your goals.
And specifics are woven into every aspect of goal setting! You can’t simply say “I want this” and expect it to happen. That’s daft!
Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve.
The middle of this process is made up of very well-defined steps (think of these detailed, defined plans as smaller goals) that help you achieve your bigger goal.
Knowing how to leverage these steps helps you to formulate goals that you can accomplish in small, incremental steps. These little stretch goals give you a boost every time you achieve them – which is a powerful motivator.
Join us in part 2 of this series, as we dig deeper into goals, your mindset, and making your own success…
James Fleming
The Power Within Training & Development
james@thepowerwithintraining.com
www.thepowerwithintraining.com
0330 133 2975
