Breaking Down Your Goals

I have attended a lot of goal-setting seminars.  Determining specific, measurable and attainable goals is important.  In my opinion, though, too much effort goes into trying to refine the goal or objective and not enough time goes into the actual action steps necessary to accomplish what you desire.  

The focus should be on the “how” part of the goal not the “what” part.  The “what” aspects are important but the “how” part explains “how are we actually going to reach this goal.”  More often than not this means a change in a current system.  It may be that we need to change our daily routine, our exercise or nutrition, our sales process, or a host of other habits and systems that are formed over time, both in our business and personal lives.  

When this is addressed at goal setting seminars, the focus tends to be to find “game-changing projects that need to be done” or “action steps.”  To me this distracts from the systems that need to be in place and instead tries to make a few specific tasks the steps towards achievement of a goal.

It may be an action item to research healthy recipes when you want to adjust your diet, but the difficult part isn’t going online and searching.  It isn’t even making a few items.  The hard part is taking the newfound knowledge and systematically using it to make you healthier.  Yet, this “hard part” is too often ignored when goal setting.  Even in the business world I have found this to be the case, which usually results in lackluster performance in new initiatives.  

Instead of looking at goals as a few “action steps,” start to view your goal as simply a destination.  Once you have the direction that you want to go, start to evolve the systems and habits necessary to get to that destination.  This will help to shift the focus from “what” is the goal to “how” am I going to reach this goal.

Shifting the focus has meant a great deal to me.  Originally I found myself struggling through goals and coming up short.  After implying systems techniques I started understanding goals to a point where it becomes easy for me to know what it will take to reach the goal.  

What goals do you have in your life?  What systems and habits need to be addressed in order to accomplish your goal?  Answering these questions will help you to reach your goal and make the necessary changes to see success.