I found that goals can be a great way to help me move forward both as an entrepreneur and in personal life. I like the idea of having something concrete such as a post-it note to look at every day. However, I found that there is a difference between working on your business and working in your business. Most of us spend a great deal of time on our work. It only seems natural that we seem to find a large part of our identity in work, whether we are entrepreneurs or not.
The issue I ran into time and time again when creating my goals, is that they were flawed for one reason or another. I came up with GREAT Goals to help me create valuable and obtainable goals.
What are GREAT Goals?
GREAT is an acronym that stands for Growth-oriented, Realistic, Energizing, Achievable, and Time-bound and Tickoffable. When setting my goals, I make sure that each one meets these 5 criteria:
Growth-Oriented - Does my goal help to propel either my work or my personal life forward? I feel as if the best goals are the ones that are productive.
Realistic - If you are like me, you are highly ambitious and believe that you can conquer the world...in just one day. In my experience, this leads to frustration and feelings of failure when I am not able to accomplish all of my goals. I find that when I set goals for a day, a week, or even a month that I have to check myself. Are my goals really realistic? Can they be accomplished in the deadline that I have set?
For instance, declaring that you are going to fix your lead generation issues in a single day isn't possible. However, saying that you are going to create a plan for fixing your lead generation processes is very much realistic.
Achievable - This means that you are able to accomplish the goals you have set without the need for anyone else's help. I believe this is an important component of goals because this puts you in complete control of whether or not your goals are reached versus putting the fate of accomplishing them in someone else's hands.
Time-Bound and Tickoffable - If you can't say that a goal is done then it is not a great goal. Let's go back to our lead generation example. If your goal is to fix your lead generation program, can you really say that you are ever done? Probably not. This means that you can't check it off. However, you can say that you made a plan to improve your lead generation program.
Most importantly, know yourself. Be compassionate and hopeful in all of your endeavors. Everyone is different. Take the time to understand the tactics that have worked for you in the past and apply them to your current and future goals.