Goal Setting – Planning and Strategy

What is Goal Setting?

I decided that I never really had a good definition for goal setting, so I went out and “googled it” and found a really good definition.

Goal Setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn this vision of the future into reality.

The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You’ll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course.

Thank you to MindTools for this explanation! You can find out more at, http://www.mindtools.com/page6.html

So, How would you go about setting the goals and what would you do upon finding your goals?

You wouldn’t just leave them on that piece of paper would you? I tried that, it doesn’t work You must take ACTION!

What needs to happen can be explained in 2 easy steps.
1) Plan
2) Strategy

Step 1) The Planning phase.

-take the time to sit down and develop a plan, find a final destination and other short-term goals
-Inadequate planning and control is the leading cause of lost productivity in most businesses
-Planning GETS THINGS GOING. It provides you with a direction to aim and a target to hit

You must be AWARE of your “big picture” and keep this in mind daily.

Step 2) The Strategy phase

-slow down
-have clear priorities and take strategic view of daily problems
-set up short-term goals(30-60 days)
-set up intermediate goals (3-10 months)
-set up long-term goals (2-5 years)
-develop a “plan of attack”

Strategic Plans, The success of organizations today require that every employee, on a daily basis, considers the “big picture” and thinks strategically about gaining and keeping a competitive edge.

In general, there are 4 steps to approaching Goal Setting and Achieving your Goals. If you can master these, you can master your business.

1- Formulate Plans
2- Carry Out Plans
3- Compare Preliminary & Final Results With Plans
4- Take Corrective Action

After going through the steps, you improve and re-do, going back to step 1 and trying to improve upon the final goal.

One of the biggest problems today is the “Busyness Trap”
You do not want to confuse being “busy” with being effective and efficient, we all know that RESULTS do matter. Results are the reason we are doing the things we do. If we didn’t want results, we wouldn’t be taking action.

Remember that activities and speed without results are an energy-sapping waste of time.

Slow down, have clear priorities and take strategic view of the daily problems.

Creativity- One of Your Greatest Business Assets

Creativity is a blend of Knowledge, Imagination and Evaluation working together to “create” a new idea.

So how can you get more creative?

1) increase knowledge

-greater knowledge means that you’ll get more ideas and more patterns will be created, new combinations and fresher ideas.

2) increase imagination

-think in pictures more
-pay attention to creativity
-different situations and surroundings
-play games that exercise creative imagination

3)  Evaluation

-Evaluate your idea, decide whether you can do it yet or not
-brainstorm potential ways of doing your idea
-if its something you think will work, DO IT

There are many mental locks in learning to be more creative, but by becoming aware of them, you can in turn learn to be more creative!

1) Looking for the “right” answer. Depending on your perspective, a given problem can have many “right” answers.
2) Always trying to be logical. Logic doesn’t always prevail, since human emotions and organizational inconsistencies, ambiguity and contradictions come up.
3) Strictly following the rules. If things are going to get better, you need to get right of arbitrary limits on thinking and behavior.
4) Insisting on being practical. Impractical answers to “what-if” questions can become stepping stones to creative insights.
5) Avoiding ambiguity. Creativity can be stunted by too much objectivity and/or specificity.
6) Fearing and avoiding failure. Fear of failure can be a paralyzing factor and prohibits us from acting on good ideas. Learn from your mistakes! Make mistakes, its okay, you can learn from them.
7) Forgetting how to play. I love this one because playing is what we were born to do, as children we were always happy “playing” so don’t be ashamed to have fun like you were a child!
Becoming too specialized. A lot of knowledge helps you with finding answers, learn about a lot!
9) Not wanting to look foolish. Humor releases tension and unlocks creative energies. Foolish questions enhance understanding.
10) Saying “I’m not creative”. You should have the mindset of “I am creative” since we all know that what you think about comes about.

By conquering these “mental locks”, you’ll be able to be happier and more creative!

Chris Hughes
www.chrishughes.ws