Everyone has goals, hopes and dreams of what they would like for the future, whether that be a personal goal or something for your business. Sometimes our goals can seem so big and so far off that it’s hard to keep the motivation and the focus needed to achieve them. So we are going to share our top tips for how to set effective goals.
Goal setting is important as it is the process of taking our dream or desire and setting out the plan of how we are going to achieve it. Without the plan, we can easily lose sight of what we are doing and more importantly, the reason we are doing it!
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- Identify your goal – to start things off you need to work out what it is you wish to achieve!
- Identify the value – you need to be able to recognize what value achieving this goal will bring to your life and/or your business and why it is important to you.
- Write it down – give yourself something to refer back to, writing down your goals makes it real and helps you to hold yourself accountable.
- Regularly take time to review your goals – this will help you keep on the right track and help you recognize the small wins along the way.
A very popular method for setting your goals is the S.M.A.R.T method, this acronym is often used both in businesses and personal lives to help set out clear and focussed goals.
Specific: Be as detailed and specific as possible. For example, if your goal is to earn more money then be specific about how much extra you’d like to earn. The more specific the goal, the more likely you are to achieve it.
Top Tip: use the 5 W’s: who, what, where, when & why!
Measurable: Being able to measure your results will help you know if you have or haven’t reached your goal yet. It will also help you to see how far off you are from reaching that goal which in turn will keep you feeling motivated to keep on going.
Achievable: Be realistic in what you want to achieve. It is great to dream big but having unrealistic goals or expectations of when you will achieve them will only have a negative impact and leave you feeling frustrated, disheartened or even lead to you giving up altogether.
Top Tip: ask yourself – Do I have the resources and capabilities to achieve the goal? If not, what am I missing?
Relevant: Is your goal relevant to you and/or your business? Why do you want to achieve this goal, how will it improve your life or your business?
Timely: Setting a timeline for your goals will help keep you on track and focused on achieving it but be sure to make the timeline achievable and realistic otherwise you’ll only find yourself frustrated.
Top Tip: Decide if your goal is long term (years), medium term (6 months to a year) or short term (less than a month)
It is also really important to think about the amount of goals you want to achieve, it is great to have multiple goals but there is always the risk that trying to achieve too many things will lead you to feeling overwhelmed or burnt out – so keep things as simple as possible!
Now that we have established how to set effective goals, my next blog covers the importance of recognizing and celebrating your wins – give it a read!
At PPF we love helping our clients set and achieve their goals and offer a wide range of services which will help you do just that, to find out more head over to our work with us page.
