Most people have things they want to do, things they want to have and maybe some thoughts about what they would like to become. Turning these 'things' into goals will greatly increase the likelihood of something happening. Here are 10 tips adapted from the soon to be published 'How to Save Time, Money and Effort by Defining Effective Goals' which focus on defining goals for everyday use.
1. Check that your goals are aligned with your core values. This will prevent possible conflict and will greatly improve your probability of success because you will have a strong reason for wanting to achieve the goals you have defined.
2. Define your goals to be measurable in time, cost, quantity or quality. Identify a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that the outcome can be clearly measured. You will then know what has to be achieved, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
> Specify a measurable improvement
> Specify how much better
> Specify how much more
> Specify how much less
> Specify what you will feel
> State what will happen
3. Use definite timescales to measure what will be achieved by when. This gives you a focus, something to work to and gives you a sense of satisfaction as you progress towards to and then achieve your goal. The deadline date you set should always be realistic and achievable. It should also be stretching. Decide to set yourself up to win rather than fail.
4. Believe that you have at least a 50% probability of success for any goal the you define. Remember that you can alter the measure or the timescale to increase your confidence in being able to achieve your goal.
5. Ensure that prior to defining any goal that it is relevant to you because it is related to a strong underlying reason why. If your reason why for progressing this goal is weak you will find that other goals will be of more importance to you, and you will have wasted time and effort.
6. Concentrate on having harmony between your goals. Ensure that your combined goals are helping you to achieve the things that are important to you at work and in your life. Goals that conflict with each other can cause confusion and lead to a lack of clear direction.
7. Focus on defining your desired outcome by asking yourself the questions: "What do I want to have", "What do I want to do", "What do I want to become?" Your answers to these questions will enable you to be specific in the outcome you want to achieve and will help you to assess the relevance of your goal to other priorities in your life.
8. Prioritise your goals. As you become confident in defining goals it is likely that you will start to define even more goals. If it appears that you have too many goals and not enough time to progress them then prioritise your goals. Decide which goals have more relevance to you at any given time. By ranking them in order of importance you will know which ones to concentrate on first.
9. Ensure that your goals are aligned with the goals of people whom are important to you in your personal life and the organisational goals. This will add to your sense of achievement of helping others and is likely to attract the involvement and assistance of others. Additionally it will decrease the possibility of conflict with the goals of these people who are important at work or in your life.
10. Break down longer term and large size goals into smaller steps. Start with an action that can be achieved quickly and successfully and turn this into a defined sub-goal. Build on this with further sub-goals to give you quick wins, thereby adding to your sense of achievement as you progress the bigger overall goal. Successfully achieving these smaller goals will ensure that the achievement of the overall larger goal. |
