The number one, absolute best way to guarantee your success, is to write out your goals.
How many times have you heard that? Dozens? Hundreds?
But how exactly do you go about it?
Do a quick Google search on “goal setting” you’ll find about 1,400,000+ suggestions, opinions, unbreakable rules, software, forms, templates, and products for sale that relate to the “how” of setting goals.
Why yet another one? Because:
- This methodology has worked for me consistently for over 10 years,
- I get asked all the time how I go about setting personal and business goals,
- It’s a mashup of what I feel is the best goal setting theories, tweaked and changed to be easy to use,
- And it attempts to trim off the BS that is usually associated with setting and achieving goals.
The Basic Model
Let’s start by taking a look at the diagram:
As you’ll see, it’s a little different from most goal setting templates. It’s sort of a “meta-model” or high level template for setting goals in a way that ensures your success at achieving them.
In this series, I’ll cover each of the steps in the goal setting model in more detail:
- The Key Elements – The things that are essential for your happiness and main drivers of why you do the things you do.
- Your Master Goals – Big picture goals that tie directly to your Key Elements.
- The Finer Points – The measurable details.
- In The Wild – What happens when you put your goals out there in a tangible way.
- The Results – Well, the results…
I can trace every success I’ve had back to following some form of this model. Some of the ideas will be old hat to you. Others will go against what you’ve heard before. Some of it will resonate with you. Some of it may not.
No matter what, don’t accept or dismiss it without trying it for yourself. It may not work for everyone, but it’s at the very least, a good place to start.
This sounds like the start of a very interesting series of articles and I look forward to reading what you have to say.
It has achieved one big bonus for me already – it prompted me to haul out my oft reworked (it’s a living document) Mission Statement, something I hadn’t done for a while. I find it interesting that most of my categories match yours – except that I’ve used different titles – the intent is the same.
Trevor – Glad to hear it got you rolling. You’ll find a lot that is probably familiar to you in this series. I’m often surprised at how many people don’t know the basics of setting goals. This method has worked well for me, so I thought I’d share it.
Hey Tony, this looks like it’s gonna be really, really good — I’m off to read Part One…
Big time believer of writing your goals down. I just did an entire section on it on my site. Being specific allows your mind to really focus on your goal and it also helps eliminate the doubt that may come with a really difficult goal. I’m interested in the results so I’ll be back to see them.
I am going to use these ideas to teach goal setting to my grade 9 health class. I will let you know how it goes and how many of them reach their goals!
Karen (health 9 teacher)