How do you define your goals?

It’s been a little over a year since I launched my small agency and in that time, I’ve had to tackle some pretty challenging tasks as well as seek new ways to reach more people. One challenge I’ve faced in marketing myself and my company, in order to grow and expand my consulting, and to meet the demands of customers, is getting more attention from consumers. To that end, I made a list of things I wanted to do with my time and how we could get more clients in the first place. One thing I have found is that each problem is relatively different from the next and each different challenge has a different path to becoming easier than the last. With the right tools at my disposal, I believe I could get several of these goals done faster than I can individually as well as feel happier about what I’m doing. So today, I’m going to explain how I get from A to B by offering some tips on how I plan to go about going after specific goals as well as some best practices for implementing them. 2. Do More

Probably one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made as an entrepreneur is failing to set up goals with small, doable to get them done. As a small business owner, setting a timer on the end of each day or week sounds intimidating at first. So I decided to make it easier to do so by doing the work in a high priority area of focus. So I decide to organize my time into a list. This only works if I am willing to allocate my time and keep that time blocked out for projects that I know will meet my end goals. That meant organizing my thoughts and defining what are essential to moving my business forward and not so important. What would be important to me? Effective communication

Valid feedback

Proactive consultation with customers and clients

Well-developed vision

Really meaningful outcomes

Two exercises for me to come up with a list of what are important to me and then use it as a way to structure my time to do those things are setting one realistic goal for the week and one for the month. I set one goal to accomplish one thing each week and the other for the month. I also use another list to prioritize the work I do and then prioritize what projects I prioritize and what tasks I schedule first. Getting set in goals early means that I don’t have to visualize myself reaching those goals on a spreadsheet or calendar for months on end. Then if I do miss the mark one time or two times in a row, I will know ahead of time I’ll have the tools to put together a new plan. It also gives me more time to work without worrying about not having enough time to get the work done. There’s a book online called Become a Better Goalner that offers more details for a more comprehensive and science based approach to deciding which goals to prioritize and which to keep moving forward. I also feel that making goals easy to communicate to yourself will go a long way for me. I have found people get better at setting goals when they can visualize their goals. I love the idea of goals as visualized but I feel that the blueprints are more useful when we’re in the moment and I usually don’t have time to do our own goal visualization.So having a rule to think of your goals and putting those on paper makes it that much easier to see your work and get some new ideas and kick off those new goals that might be on your list. Lastly, having a strong action plan for each goal is the key in the early stages of the process. Once you know what the goals are, then figuring out how to accomplish them is much easier. However, I still have to review them before I can then figure out what actions I need to take to accomplish them. One of the best ways to do this, is to have a monthly action plan. Here are some examples that I put together for myself:

Write a weekly action plan for the week. Plan an action plan for one-hour blocks of time. Engage in a “planned activity” with customers where I do an action item for five minutes or more. Write an action plan for an hour that involves me working on something that is important to me and often during that hour I am running through the checklist of things I need to get done before heading out the door. Use the steps from step one as a guide and then send that document to yourself and check it twice a week to ensure the actions are getting done. If there are any action items that I haven’t completed, I will keep going at it. Another idea I had while coming up with my goals was to make them SMART (specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound).

Five Steps to creating a SMART Goal

It is important to keep in mind that creating a SMART goal or action plan is more than a list of steps to accomplish something. As we’ve discussed, once you have made a goal, it is even more important to think of how you are going to accomplish it. To do that, you need a SMART goal or plan, which is part of the reason SMART is so popular. A SMART goal or plan is a set of steps you can take that get you to the goal. For the goal that I wrote above, the top three is ranking and moving forward in a certain direction.

I think this is a fantastic approach that will put you on the path to creating and accomplishing the goals that are important to you. I have done mine for myself, but you can do it too. The key is to remember not all SMART goals are created equal. You will have different goals for different tasks and just make sure to use the below steps to help get you to the point that you need to be at.

Muse Tip –

If you are looking to create a SMART goal, or just want to be more aware of what your “goals” and actions are, then you need to dig a little deeper. Here are some ways to improve and define your goals and action plans:

Review your goal list five times per week.

Review your plan for the next week.

Review all of your goals and action plans every Monday.

Figure out how you want to be recognized for your actions on a regular basis.

Muse Tip –

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