Setting Goals

"Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. 

They are essential to really keep us alive." - Robert H. Schuller

Setting and keeping goals for yourself is a critically important practical step of leadership. It will be next to impossible for you to help those you lead to achieve goals if you don't take the time and energy required to meet goals in your own life. Goals bring drive to a purpose, a means of evaluating a project, and are a vehicle to help us arrive at our destiny. 

"It's not an accident that musicians become musicians and engineers become engineers: it's what they're born to do. If you can tune into your purpose and really align with it, setting goals so that your vision is an expression of that purpose, then life flows much more easily."

 - Jack Canfield

Goals are simply a vision or dream with a plan to bring it into reality. So here's some simple ways to look at goal setting that will get you started. 

Set your Long Term Goals - Your long term goals should be more than accomplishing a single feat or achieving a single action. They should be about becoming something more than what you are currently. Envision what you want to be remembered for when you are no longer a contender on planet earth. This clarity will help you plot out your path to get there.

"You control your future, your destiny. What you think about comes about. By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands - your own." - Mark Victor Hansen. 

But don't spend too much time fretting about setting your long term goals in stone. In fact, take a look at your lifetime goal every 5 years and ask yourself if it still lines up with who you are and where you want to be.

Create Benchmark Goals - Too often, young leaders wistfully dream about the future they'll have only to be absent minded when it comes time to plan. Get your plan together and set 5-10 year goals that will line up with your primary, long term goal. For example: My lifetime goal is to be known for instilling excellence in others. To help me get there, my 5 year goal is to be part of a team that coaches leaders - to have a leadership book in the works - and to have been adding faithfully to this blog for those 5 years.  

Establish short term goals. "What I think a lot of great marathon runners do is envision crossing that finish line. Visualization is critical. But for me, I set a lot of little goals along the way to get my mind off that overwhelming goal of 26.2 miles. I know I've got to get to 5, and 12, and 16, and then I celebrate those little victories along the way." - Bill Rancic. Life becomes a series of marathons to reach your goals. Setting monthly and yearly goals helps you keep focus while you run for the finish line. It also gives you the opportunity to celebrate along the way. 

I checked out mindtools.com and found this excellent principle to guide you to set appropriate goals. It's using the SMART mnemonic

S - specific/significant
M - measurable/meaningful
A - attainable/action oriented
R - relevant/rewarding
T - time-bound/trackable

"One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don't invest any energy in them, because I know who I am."

- Michelle Obama

What are your long term goals?

What short term goals are you going to set for this month, and how will you celebrate?