Setting Goals For The New Year
Where do you start?         With yourself!

Things Leaders Do

1.      Take Personal Responsibility

Build teams and place others first.  It’s not about you.

2. Simplify Constantly
Clearly explain the top three things you’re working on.

3.      Understand Breadth, Depth and Context
How do you fit and respond?

4.     The importance of alignment and time management
Set priorities, measure outcomes and communicate to others.

5.     Leaders learn constantly and also have time to teach
Teach others of your value and ability.  Share what you’ve learned.

6.     Stay true to your own style

Become self-aware.  Every morning ask, what three things could I have done better yesterday?#@#_WA_-_CURSOR_-_POINT_#@#7.

 7. Manage by setting boundaries with freedom in the middle
Commitment, passion, trust and teamwork are boundaries.  Protect them.

8.     Stay disciplined and detailed
Personally intervene on things that are important to you, your customers, your team and your company.

9.     Leave a few things unsaid
Sometimes being an active listener is more effective than a personal position.
What’s best for the team?

10. Like people.
You have chosen to be here.  Understand others, be fair and put your best effort forward.

 “The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, learn about them or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable.  Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.” 

Denis Waitley

Whatever It Takes!

• You alone are responsible for the quality of your work and the quality of your life.
• Give yourself the freedom to grow and expand.  Say YES to your own potential.
• Dream big and use the power of your imagination.
• Without action, your dream, your goal or plan has little meaning in the world.

Writing Your Goals

Clearly describe the results (goals) of what you want that you can control and write them down.

Define why these results are important to you.  Be certain of your desire to achieve these goals and focus on the solution rather than the problem.

List the likely obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve the results and identify where you can get help.  Reach out for help today!

List the realistic capabilities, strategies and knowledge you will need to achieve these results.

Write a specific, measurable action plan, defining each step to achieve the results.  Express your goals in terms of specific events and actions.

Create accountability by specifying a timeline to achieve your goals.

Progress = Milestones

How you spend your time everyday matters.

Persevere

Stay positive

Pay attention to details and prepare your action plan.

Build your own network of advocates, your personal promoter network.

 “Like all of us, you are spending the minutes, hours, and days of your life in the pursuit of something and your are buying it with your very life.  Have you inspected the package?  Are you chasing what you really want?” 

“Pursue your goals with ferocity and singularity of purpose.  When you choose a goal to pursue, do you ask, “Is this a mountain I’m willing to die on?”   - Roy H. Williams

Take Action Today!
Write down your goals, put the steps necessary to reach your goal in your planner and set a date by which you will have made progress towards achieving those goals.

Why I Have No Goals
“Goal,” in my experience, is a favorite word of people who talk and dream and dream and talk. And then they get together to “network” with other talkers. There’s always a lot of noise in these meetings but it’s unlikely than anything of consequence is going to happen. People who chatter about goals are rarely willing to die on that mountain.

I have no goals. But I do have plans.

A plan puts you in motion toward a destination. The destination you choose is irrelevant.
It is (1.) motion, (2.) determination and (3.) commitment that separate destination-reaching explorers from goal-setting chipmunks.

 “Am I willing to die on this mountain?”

“Intent.” That’s the word. Plans have intent. Goals do not.

A goal without a plan is wishful thinking.
A plan without action is self-delusion.

1. What are you trying to make happen?
2. How will you measure success? 

3. What’s the first thing you need to do to get started?

How to Use Goals to Create a High-Performance Sales Culture

Goals must meet four criteria:

1) The goal must be simple enough to be clearly understood.
Overly complicated or ambiguous goals are doomed from the get-go. If your team members can’t understand what the goal is, they’ll never latch on to it.

Don’t confuse simplicity with easily accomplished. . Sir Edmund Hillary’s goal was to be the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest – simple and clear, but certainly not easy to accomplish.

2) The goal must be (just) achievable.
If goals are too easy, they’re not very useful. On the other hand, if goals are seen as impossible, your team will only end up discouraged and frustrated. Remember that goals are not one-size-fits-all. What is achievable for one person or team may be out of reach for another.  While reaching the summit of Everest is certainly achievable with the right preparation, determination, skill, and support (658 people summited last year), it is not an achievable goal for the vast majority of the population.

3) The goal must be meaningful.
People look to leaders for a vision and to help them become part of something bigger than they could achieve alone. If you cannot tie your goal to anything meaningful, you won’t inspire the necessary enthusiasm among your team to struggle to achieve it.  To have a fair chance at conquering Everest, where 1 in 10 people loses his or her life, the endeavor must make profound sense to you and your family physically, emotionally, and spiritually. 

4) The goal must be worth fighting for.
Goals require work and discipline. When the chips are down and the road ahead still looks long, people must be able to revisit their intention to achieve the goal and say, “This will be worth it. I will do what it takes to prevail.”

Some organizations have not gotten the memo about goals, and they wonder why their teams are underperforming. More often than not, we find in these types of organizations that leaders are setting goals that are unclear, meaningless, impossible to achieve, too easy to achieve, or not seen as worth the effort in the eyes of their people.

The next time you set a goal for your team, make sure it’s simple, achievable, meaningful, and worth fighting for. When you are crystal clear about where your organization is headed and how you’re going to get there, you can see amazing results from the top of the world.