Effective Goal Setting – Or Setting Yourself Up For Disappointment?

Nicola says:  When I was just getting started in personal development and wealth creation, I diligently worked through every exercise in books like Colin Turner’s “Swimming With Pirahna’s Makes You Hungry” and Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” and I ended up setting goals for myself.

I had never set goals before in my life….. oh, sure! I had some vague “wants” but I’d never set goals and when I think about it, there were two main reasons why.

1. I had no idea HOW I was going to achieve those goals – for heaven’s sake, I didn’t even know what the word strategy meant!
2. I was scared to write down a goal, fully expecting to NOT achieve it and then be disappointed with myself when I found the piece of paper later, in a drawer somewhere.

Essentially, I had no idea that you can set a goal, then make a plan to make it happen.  How funny that seems now….although I am now a great believer in setting goals with no idea of how to make them happen at first!

Judith thinks I’m a bit barking when I talk like this, because she’s set goals and achieved them, barring a few unforeseen exocets, all her life.

So all this said, when we launched our Money Gym Silver Elite programme this week as a pilot for the main launch in September, one of our main aims was to encourage the Silver Elite participants to create some goals for themselves, for the programme, and to encourage them to create a strategy (plan) for how they were going to achieve them – specifically how they were going to achieve them within the 90 days of the programme.

We hosted the first webinar and discussed the subject thoroughly (albeit with a frustrated Judith listening in, unable to contribute as much as she would have liked, due to techie issues) and we came up with the following goal setting process which I wanted to share with you.

Marian’s (Shorter Version) Goal Setting Format:

• Set your goal(s)
• Work out your compelling ‘why’
• How will you achieve your goal?  (Think, brainstorm, strategise…)
• What are the obstacles, turn ‘em around and make them challenges and blast through them
• What time will you commit to the goal (& is it more time than you spend watching TV or sitting in pub!)

Nicola’s (Longer Version) Goal Setting Format:

1. Think of between one and three goals you would like to achieve in 90 days
2. Run them through the SMART process – Judith, could you elaborate on that one?
3. Tell us WHY you want to achieve them – what difference will it make in your life?
4. Work out where you will need to be with each of them, to be a third of the way there in 30 days, two thirds of the way there in 60 days.
5. How much time per week do you have to work on your 90 day goals
6. When are you going to work on them?  Saturdays? Sunday mornings?  Tuesday evenings?
7. What steps do you think you need to take to move into action?
8. What is going to stop you?  What are your perceived obstacles?
9. What would be the outcome, if you turned those obstacles around into outcomes?
10. What are you going to do first?  This week? Before the next call (commitment in public via the Google Group to at least one action step please)

Judith’s (SMART) Goal Setting Process

A SMART goal, for what it’s worth, and it won’t suit all, is

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Timed/timelined

Thus a goal like S posted yesterday “To attract 1000 Twitter followers within 30 days” is all of the above – if she has a plan to achieve it.

The point about this SMART process is… you know whether you’ve done it or not.

So tell me via the comments box here, do YOU set goals?  How do you do it?  What are your challenges around goal setting?

Love to hear what you think!