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Goals are the fundamental steppingstones to achieving success professionally and personally. They provide clear focus, targets and motivate employees within a business towards a common objective.
Research by Mark Murphy at Leadership IQ even shows that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams by writing them down. This is one of the most important actions you can take. Sadly, most people don't do it.
Generally speaking, goals can be broken into three different categories: strategic goals (vision, mission and value statements that underpin your strategy), tactical goals, and operational objectives. Each type of goal is closely related to the timeframe of expected achievement - long term, middle term, and short term.
Goals setting is vital for performance measurement and an outcome focused process for your business. Once you have clearly defined goals, you can then take control of your business’s direction as well as remedy issues that emerge along the ways.
While it is ideal to set goals at the start of your business or personal journey, you must revise them frequently, as our world is dynamic and changes occur along every journey. Nothing ever stays the same. As with life, we need to embrace these changes and focus on leveraging disappointments or business threats into potential opportunities. Every crisis is an opportunity awaiting discovery.
Goals can’t just be easy and set only to boost morale by achieving them. They need to be difficult as studies show that 90% of people who set challenging and specific goals performed better in the long term than those who only set easy goals, no goals, or “do your best” goals.
So, how do you go about to setting SMART goals?
Goals should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable or attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
The more specific your goals are, with deadlines, the better your probability will be in achieving them.
This is why you should always plan. If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail. Make a commitment today to create a vision board and write your goals down now.
Below, we are going to explain some specific benefits of setting both business and life goals:
Business Goals
Whether you have just started a business or are a business veteran, business planning is key to success. You should have a business plan in place for the short term (say 1 year) and the long-term (5 to 10 years). Dream big, set goals and little by little, start chipping away at it.
Having a business plan is important for the following reasons:
- It helps you focus on your priorities – provides business raison d’etre (or commonly known as your WHY). It defines your short-term and long-term business goals and objectives.
- Helps you with clarity in making decisions – are you going towards or further from your goals with each decision you make?
- Provides business controls as required – once you know what your goals are, you can then set in place key performance indicators (KPIs) which measure the ongoing progress of your business in achieving your major goals
- Helps you seek finance – when you pursue business growth and seek financing, you will be able to educate and convince investors and banks why they should invest into your business as you have a tangible forecast which they can see, helping you to gain additional funding.
Life Goals
Underpinning business goals and personal goals are more important questions that you should be asking yourself. What are some of your life goals? What are your purposes in life and how does having these goals contribute to the core of you who you are? Why and to what extent is financial security important and where do you draw the boundaries?
Studies show that 63% of business owners struggle to draw the line between business ambition and personal ambition, however it is a distinction everyone needs to learn to make. The more time you spend on your business to establish and grow it, the less personal time you will have to spend with your loved ones, which is why we highly recommend that you set your goals, know your priorities and boundaries right from the onset. By doing so, you can expand your business whilst also giving yourself time to achieve your life and personal ambitions.
We constantly hear about the importance of goal setting from the time we first step foot into a school. However, as you progress further in life, whether you own a business or not, its significance definitely does not disappear. It is one of the easiest but most essential processes, and it is sure to grant you success in any facet of your life.
More information can be found here:
You can find some goal setting templates here:
