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Goal Setting Strategies That Work

by Gary Ryan Blair

The most important part of the goal setting information that follows is what you do with it…
to include your actions, contributions, decisions and the results of those decisions.
The marketplace only rewards implementation, and that’s why you are asked
to act on the ideas and apply them to yourself and your career.

Gary Ryan Blair

“If the goal doesn’t challenge you, it cannot change you.”

—Gary Ryan Blair

There’s a long-standing fallacy about goal setting that infects the minds of most people as well as business owners that goes something like this:

It takes a long time to learn how to set and achieve a goal. The only trustworthy path to health, wealth and success in any endeavor is to do so slowly over time.

I have a one word response that boils down to two letters: B.S.

What possible benefit can anyone discern from the depressing notion that the path to goal achievement and success should take years, perhaps even decades?

In reality, fortune favors the BOLD who ACT with DECISIVENESS, SPEED and CLARITY.

This has always been the case and I firmly believe it will always be so. And I’m not alone.

A growing number of people and entrepreneurs are now embracing a concept known as “Growth Hacking” – fast, quick, laser-focused actions that accelerate your rate of achievement.

While the term itself seems to have emerged from high tech industries such as Cloud Computing or Software As A Service (SAAS), more and more of these strategies are being used by smart people and companies.

And they are experiencing astonishing results in record time.

 

Goal Setting

THINK ABOUT IT….

If the goal is to…

…become debt free…why perpetuate the pain and do it slowly?

…get in great shape…why on earth should it take 10 years to lose 20 pounds?

…get better grades…why should it take any longer than the next exam to turn things around?

…become the sales leader in your company…why should it take until next year when you can wear the crown next month?

…get rich…then you might as well learn how to get rich fast, and while your young for that matter.

The fact is…any goal, plan, intention or idea expands so as to fill and reinforce the unnecessary amount of time you’ve made available for its completion.

There is no redeeming value in achieving goals and success slowly…and if you’d prefer to go for the brass ring NOW as opposed to some far off point in the future, then I suggest you participate
in the 100 Day Challenge.

The 100 Day Challenge is a hardcore goal setting program, a proven execution model that produces the highest levels of performance.

Like any world-class competition…it contains the elements necessary for unleashing your greatness: rules, performance standards, accountability, a scoreboard, a finish line, competition and most of all fun.

Goal Setting

Designed for the bold, ambitious and courageous…the 100 Day Challenge will challenge you on many levels.

You’ll be challenged to confront your fears, proactively move through resistance, test your limits, enforce and meet deadlines, act with boldness, demonstrate a strong sense of urgency…and take
massive action to ensure that you get more accomplished in 100 days than most people do over the course of ten years.

As to why the program works…it’s actually very simple; when you set goals in the context of a 100 day sprint versus an annual timeline like most people and companies do, you no longer have the
luxury of putting off decisions, procrastinating or not taking action.

Your mindset for the moment may be flawed by doubt and skepticism. I completely understand.

The idea of growth hacking, of making huge performance leaps and jumping from your present level of achievement to one several stages higher in 100 days is an alien idea.

Goal Setting

You have not been trained to think that way…and you may very well have definite reservations about the possibility that you can make such exponentional improvement at all in such an abbreviated time frame.

However, I assure you that your doubts and skepticism are rooted in mental limitation. Your doubts are NOT the product of accurate thinking but habitual thinking.

From years as a successful entrepreneur and salesperson and now as a mentor, coach, and consultant, I know that most people have just never been taught how to write effective goals, nor have they been taught how to achieve them quickly.

That’s about to change as I want to use the balance of this post to offer a basic goal-setting primer as well as some advanced goal-setting tips that work.

1. What is goal setting?

2. What does the smart acronym stand for when goal setting?

3. What are goal setting skills?

4. What goals to set?

5. How many goals should you set?

6. What to do when setting a goal?

7. What is important when setting a goal?

8. Why is goal setting important when beginning an exercise program?

9. What is the best goal setting program?

10. Why goal setting fails?

11. Why setting goals is important?

12. Why set goals?

13. Why setting goals is bad?

14. Why set life goals?

15. Why do we set goals?

16. Who invented smart goal setting?

17. Who should set goals?

18. Who set goals in the bible?

19. How to set sales goals?

20. How to set business goals?

21. How to set realistic goals?

22. How to accomplish set goals?

23. 4 Steps When Setting a Goal

24. The Power of Goal Setting

1. What is goal setting?

Goal setting is the process of identifying three things…what do you want to BE such as a profession (Singer) or an acquired attribute (Rich and famous)…what do you want to HAVE such as
possessions…what do you want to DO such as travel and other accomplishments. It’s important to remember that all goals will fall under these three categories. This is a rule without an exception.

Once you have identified what you want to be, have or do…you then begin the process of goal achievement.

2. What does the smart acronym stand for when goal setting?

The “smart.” acronym has been interpreted in various ways by different teachers. When I refer to smart goals, I’m very pragmatic and believe that there is a right way and a wrong way to set goals. SMART Goals must meet five criteria.

They must be:

Specific—your goals must identify precisely what you aim to accomplish.

Wrong: Write a book.
Right: Write the first three chapters for Everything Counts.

Measurable—as the old adage says, “you must inspect what you expect.” You must quantify the specific result. You want to know absolutely, positively whether or not you hit the goal.

Wrong: Earn more this year than last.
Right: Earn $5,000 more this year than last.

Actionable—every goal should start with an action verb (e.g., “quit,” “run,” “finish,” “eliminate,” etc.) rather than a to-be verb (e.g., “am,” “be,” “have,” etc.)

Wrong: Be more consistent in exercise routine.
Right: Exercise four days per week.

Realistic—you have to be careful here. A smart goal should stretch you, it should create tension and be somewhat demanding, but you have to use common sense. I personally go right up to the edge of my comfort zone and then step over it. I believe that if the goal doesn’t challenge you, it cannot change you.

Wrong: Qualify for the PGA Tour.
Good: Lower my golf handicap by four strokes.

Time-bound—every goal needs a specific deadline as a deadline is the ultimate form of inspiration. When do you plan to deliver on that goal. It could be by year-end (December 31) or it could be by the end of the first-quarter (March 31). A goal without a date is just a dream. Make sure that every goal ends with a by when date.

Wrong: Pay off debt.
Right: Pay off $5000 in debt by December 31st.

Goal Setting

3. What are goal setting skills?

Cultivating the ability to achieve goals quickly, effectively and creatively is a mandatory condition for success for the simple reason that great goal setting skills will allow you to maintain control and live life on your terms.

While there are a good number of goal setting skills for you to develop, what follows are the top three.

Move Fast

Speed is a highly leverageable offensive strategy which brings with it a reputation of confidence, clarity of purpose, strength of conviction and savvy execution.

Move fast, play a strong offense and make your name synonymous with speed of execution.

Everything you think, say and do has a direction which moves you closer to, or further from your goals. —Gary Ryan Blair

Enforce Your Will

Willpower is your goal setting superpower…it’s an undeniable declaration that you are going to succeed. Enforcing your will over any resistance force means that you have the type of spirit that is
incapable of being overcome, subdued, or vanquished and proves that you can do anything you set your mind to.

Hustle

Most people have an aversion to hard work. They tend to look for quick and easy ways of doing things…productivity hacks and shortcuts. It’s for that reason why I want you to burn this reality
into your mind…the best shortcut for fast tracking your goals is to deploy a strong, aggressive, unrelenting offense, one fueled by a disciplined work ethic and good old-fashioned hustle.

While others might be taller, better looking and maybe even more talented, hustle will always beat talent, when talent doesn’t hustle. Good things come to those who hustle.

Goal Setting

4. What goals to set?

There is no purer form of success, no more exact and demanding test of what you are capable of, than to set and achieve big challenging goals for the simple reason that if the goal does not challenge you, it cannot change you.

While we all have different goals and aspirations, we all love and benefit from big challenging goals—goals that inspire us to reach the peak of our potential, which jailbreaks us from our comfort
zone, and transforms us into a better, far more capable version of ourselves.

The ultimate reason for setting challenging goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them. As who you become, as well as the traits and goal setting skills you develop in rising to meet a big challenging goal, are much more important than the nature of the goal itself.

5. How many goals should you set?

Less is more. Productivity studies show that you really can’t focus on more than 5–7 items at any one time. And don’t try to cheat by including sections with several goals under each section. This is a formula for losing focus and negatively impacting your results.

Instead, focus on no more than 3 goals at any one time.

Reducing the number of goals is the perfect solution to the biggest problem faced by most people — accountability. Accountability serves to protect your character as well as your credibility, and by reducing the number from 1-3 goals, you remove complexity and overwhelm, and replace it with confidence and control.

6. What to do when setting a goal?

As to what to do when setting a goal, you must first win the mental game before taking any physical actions.

Why? It’s actually pretty simple. You will either rise to meet the mental demands and physical rigors of a big challenging goal, or you will succumb to them. And because victory begins in the mind, all goals and great challenges are initially won or lost between your ears.

The very nature of going after a big challenging goal sets an appropriate stage for practicing mental toughness, which by definition means a psychological edge that enables you to remain
focused and confident during high-pressure situations to perform at your full potential.

7. What is important when setting a goal?

When setting a goal, it’s important to focus your time, money and all available resources on its achievement.

Focus is best seen as a preemptive strike against mediocrity. The moment you focus on a big challenging goal, your goal becomes a magnet that pulls you and your resources toward it. The more focused your energies, the more power you generate, and the sooner you will enjoy victory.

Goal Setting

8. Why is goal setting important when beginning an exercise program?

Before beginning any fitness goal setting program, you need to decide what you want out of it.

Do you want to:

improve your appearance
physical skills
build endurance, flexibility or strength
lose weight

Make sure the activities that you pick specifically meet the fitness goal setting result you want.

9. What is the best goal setting program?

The world’s best goal setting program is the 100 Day Challenge.

The 100 Day Challenge is a hardcore goal setting program, a proven execution model that produces the highest levels of performance.

Like any world-class competition…it contains the elements necessary for unleashing your greatness: rules, performance standards, accountability, a scoreboard, a finish line, competition
and most of all fun.

Designed for the bold, ambitious and courageous…the 100 Day Challenge will challenge you on many levels.

You’ll be challenged to confront your fears, proactively move through resistance, test your limits, enforce and meet deadlines, act with boldness, demonstrate a strong sense of urgency…and
take massive action to ensure that you get more accomplished in 100 days than most people do over the course of ten years.

10. Why goal setting fails?

Failure, disappointment, quitting, making excuses, and blame are not admirable qualities, and you should never allow yourself to be associated with such behaviors. Unfortunately that’s exactly how the majority of people experience their goal setting initiatives.

The primary reason why goal setting fails, and the root cause that holds people back from unleashing their greatness is…poor execution.

Superior execution on the other hand is the greatest market differentiator there is…it’s a devastating competitive advantage and the reason why people fail or succeed in achieving their goals.

Goal Setting

11. Why setting goals is important?

There are three primary reasons why setting goals is important:

Goals establish direction for your life. If you never set a goal, how will you know where you are going?

Goals identify results. If no goal exists, how do you measure your progress?

Goals challenge you to grow. If you never set a goal, how do you move out of your comfort zone?

12. Why set goals?

If you’ve ever wondered why you should set goals, the answer if very simple as to lead a successful life, you need an empowering vision.

A vision is a way of seeing or conceiving what you want to create or achieve. The single most important thing to have before you do any goal setting or planning is a vision.

How can you plan or set goals without knowing what you envision for your life? It would be like starting a trip without first determining your destination, purpose of the trip, and what you expect to do when you get there.

13. Why setting goals is bad?

There is nothing inherently wrong or bad about setting goals. The fault lies in poor execution which in turn leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths.

The #1 worst way to go about setting goals and new year resolutions is attempting to achieve too many at one time.

It’s the quickest way to guarantee failure and the worst thing you can do if you’re trying to transform your life.

Why? Because it leads to loss of focus, feelings of overwhelm and heightened levels of stress.

The answer is to practice the rule of one which states that instead of starting the New Year or any goal setting initiative with a long list of goals and resolutions which quickly fade from memory, make the decision to focus on the one goal that would make the greatest impact on your life, career, or family.

Contrary to the lyrics from a classic rock song, one is not the loneliest number. It’s the most important one, especially when it comes to your success.

14. Why set life goals?

It’s imperative to set life goals in the following ten categories:

Personal: These are goals relating to character development, personal growth, and practical living issues.

Health: These are goals relating to exercise, appearance, diet and overall health and well-being.

Recreation: These are goals relating to relaxation, renewal, hobbies, vacations, and leisure activities.

Family: These are goals relating to your partner, children, parents, and relatives.

Friends: These are goals such as expanding your circle of friends and enriching existing relationships.

Community: These are goals involving a commitment to serving others through your time, talents, heart, and possessions.

Career: These are goals relating to skill development, networking, current projects, and future ambitions.

Financial: These are goals relating to income growth, savings, investments, retirement, and estate planning.

Household: These are goals relating to household improvements, security, and general maintenance.

Spiritual: Goals relating to faith, spiritual growth, and the strengthening of your beliefs.

Goal Setting

15. Why do we set goals?

Every goal poses a simple but profound question: How badly do you want it?

To realize your potential and emerge victorious, you must respond with some version of this answer: More.

And then you have to prove it…that’s where desire and passion come into the picture.

Passion is hard-core devotion to a person, goal or cause; it infuses life with meaning, joy, significance and unbridled enthusiasm.

It’s desire in your heart, it’s fire in your belly…it’s the twinkle in your eye…it’s your magnificent obsession.

Passion is your psychological mojo, it’s the reason why you get up early and work late, it’s the why that points the way…and it is an indispensable virtue that is far more valuable than money, power, or fame.

16. Who invented smart goal setting?

The SMART acronym for goal setting first appeared in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management goals and objectives.” was the title and it was written by George Doran, Arthur Miller, and James Cunningham.

17. Who should set goals?

As to who should set goals, that’s an easy one as goal setting should take place in all the important rooms of your life to include everyone in the boardroom, classroom, locker room and living room.

18. Who set goals in the bible?

There are a lot of people who set goals in the bible. Setting goals, making plans and attracting abundance is referenced more than 100 times in the bible.

The following provide a few examples:

Proverbs 21:5 – The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

Philippians 3:14 – I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

2 Chronicles 15:7 – But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

Habakkuk 2:2-3 – And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

19. How to set sales goals?

Consider the goal-setting process as an interview. When setting a goal and planning for its accomplishment, always ask the six most important questions you learned as a child…who, what, where, when, how and why.

Who will be involved in helping you achieve this goal?

What is the goal? What specifically do you want to accomplish?

Where are you now in relation to this goal?

On what date do you expect to achieve this goal?

How will you accomplish this goal?

Why do you want to achieve this goal?

20. How to set business goals?

Business goals should revolve around the four key business drivers. They are increasing sales, profits and productivity as well as goals designed to decrease costs. Everything else will be a subset of those four drivers.

21. How to set realistic goals?

A goal exists to move you from where you are to where you want to be and that in itself speaks to the importance of setting unrealistic goals. You must always be mindful that if the goal does not challenge you, it cannot change you.

22. How to accomplish set goals?

Your job is not done when you have answered what is to be done. You must also answer how it is to be done. Plans are nothing if they cannot be executed successfully.

To go forward is recognition that life is dynamic, not static. To go forward is to make each move, each action, count. To go forward is to give up dwelling on the past.

There are no new battles to be won. Your job is to commit your past successes and failures to memory and apply their lessons to present situations.

Apply is the operative word. Use the past to go forward. Experience and knowledge of the past are useful to you insofar as they can be applied to the present and to the future.

Start Fast. Finish Strong. —Gary Ryan Blair

23. 4 Steps When Setting a Goal

The 4 steps, and a simple strategy which you need to engage when setting a goal is best summarized in an eight-word rhyming strategy.

They are think it, ink it, do it, and review it.

Allow me to break this strategy down into four interdependent steps.

Step One: Think It

All physical goals or outcomes are birthed by thought and have some kind of a mental equivalent.

What this means is that everything you want to be, have or do initially exists as nothing more than vapor, and that by setting a goal, you are actually tasking yourself with creating something out of nothing.

That’s why I love this subject as I’ve always looked at goal setting as a magical process, whereby you get to go to amazing places inside your mind, to think as big and bold as your imagination allows, and to dream about all the wonderful things you want to do with your life.

Step Two: Ink It

Your mind while blessed with permanent memory is cursed with lousy recall. Written goals are catalysts; they serve as transforming agents for success and achievement.

That is precisely why I urge you to write them down at the beginning of each day, and then place them in area of high visibility to ensure focus, reinforcement and accountability.

From eureka to achievement, the evolution of a goal begins in the mind and immediately takes shape when pen is put to paper. The goal progresses from thought to sketch, from sketch to action, and finally from action to achievement in real time.

Goals and plans kept only in your mind have an uncanny way of remaining figments of your imagination…as once they are out of sight, they quickly go out of mind.

Step Three: Do It

A flawed premise of success is that the goal is the most important ingredient in the stew of success, and that you win or lose based on the merits or worthiness of the goal.

How wrong and casualty-creating that premise is as the best goal or idea, no matter how well thought out and documented cannot survive inferior execution.

Goals never fail…ONLY implementation does, and unless you execute properly and remain focused until completion, the goal — and that means ANY goal — is irrelevant.

Step Four: Review It

Just as DNA’S coding is built into every cell of your body, the combination for achieving any goal requires the inspection of expectations. This is why I continually reinforce the importance of an After Action Review (AAR).

The fact is, no plan holds up against the weight of opposition, change, and adversity. The shelf life of any goal or plan expires quickly if not reviewed, updated and acted upon.

Good intentions, while honorable are of little use when you let months, quarters, and years of potential and possibility slip by unexpected.

The bottom line is that consistent performance review is an invaluable exercise as this ongoing discipline is aimed squarely at driving a persistent improvement in skill, execution, knowledge and results.

24. The Power of Goal Setting

You are responsible for your own success. You either work hard for what you want or you don’t; therefore if you want to be successful in any endeavor take complete ownership of the process, which begins with the awesome power of goal setting.

Success demands dedication, discipline, hard work, and courage. It requires your utmost attention and will not allow itself to be taken for granted.

Success must be earned, deserved, respected and appreciated. Success plays by specific, non-negotiable rules, it will always require that goals be clearly identified, plans in place and action consistently enforced.

 

Posted on May 22nd, 2017 by Gary Ryan Blair

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