The Art of Setting Goals

I was with a client the other day who was talking to me about setting goals for her business for the coming year. She was pretty stuck on how to do this - from how she should word the goals to what they should be. So let me explain:

Goals in your business help keep you motivated and focused. Whenever I don't feel motivated, I know that 9 times out of 10, it's because I don't have a clear goal to achieve. When I set a goal, I always feel much better.

Goals should be for you and you alone. Don't worry about what anyone else might think. You don't have to share them or let anyone see them. I recommend that you write them down and then carry them around with you (in your wallet or your purse) so you can look at them often.

When you write them down, they don't have to look pretty or be spelt correctly - as long as you can look at them and know exactly what you mean, that's ok.

But, and this is a big but - you must BELIEVE that you can achieve them. If you find yourself writing down a goal and then thinking 101 reasons why you can't achieve it, scrap that one and start again. In order for goal setting to work for you, you must believe that you have a fighting chance of achieving them - if you don't believe this, who else will?

They must be goals that you are really passionate about and want to achieve. When you write them down, they should make you feel excited and feel that you'd happily get out of bed for no pay to get them done.

Feel free to set personal goals as well as goals for the business - make them challenging, but believe you can achieve them. Set some, but not too many - more than 6 or 7 in a year may make you lose focus.

And remember that Barrak Obama had a dream too - to become President of the United States. Now, I'm sure that he had people saying to him "you'll never achieve that" or "what if", but he believed and his dream has come true. So what's your dream?