We all want to stay focused on our goals, but that can be hard with all of life’s twists and turns.
With all of your professional and personal demands, you might feel like you don’t have enough time to relax, have fun or plan for the future. Before long, your goals can seem out of reach.
Good leaders know that holding regular planning sessions and reviewing goals is important to running a successful business. It’s important that managers set specific goals, consistently review them, focus on their team members’ skills and act on opportunities to achieve these goals.
Let’s break down what can sometimes be the overwhelming art of goal-setting, starting with eight practical strategies:
1. Treat your morning meeting with your inner self seriously
Hold this meeting in a space that is free of disruptions and create an agenda that you can follow. Make sure that you also have the necessary tools at hand: an uplifting book that describes how others achieved their goals, a pen and a notebook.
2. Read inspirational material
Invest at least five minutes every day reading something that puts you in an uplifting mood. As you read about the successes of others, your mind will look for ways to make those kinds of successes familiar and attainable.
3. Be thankful
Be grateful for all the good things in your life, as well as the things that you hope to have soon – and write those down. Psychologists agree that gratitude and happiness help you to be more focused and able to effectively solve problems.
Then read your list out loud. Studies show that when we read something out loud, it gets imprinted in our subconscious, which helps us see more ways of making our statements into reality.
4. Take time to visualize
Professional athletes use this technique as part of their training. They see themselves making the shot, winning the game, celebrating with teammates and family. If you want to achieve your goals, see yourself doing it first. Imagine what it will be like to turn your goals into reality. What would this goal be, and how would you feel? Who is there celebrating with you?
5. Follow your intuition
Look out for leads, directions and opportunities that might put you on the path toward your goals. Some might not make sense at first but, as Steve Jobs said, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” Take the first step, call someone who comes to mind out of the blue or follow up on a gut instinct to go to a particular location. You might be pleasantly surprised.
6. Celebrate the big and the small stuff
While we often celebrate anniversaries, the closing of major projects or staff birthdays, more often than not we just push on without truly appreciating all the little things that sustain us. When was the last time you celebrated some great customer feedback? How hard your team members worked to get a task done? A selfless gesture made to a colleague or customer? A promise fulfilled?
It can be as simple as a genuine thank you or acknowledgement. It might be an extra coffee picked up on the way to work for that person. Or buying everyone lunch just because it’s been a tough week and you survived. Life flies by quickly. Days pass in a flash and, as we rush from one meeting to another, from one thing on our to-do list to the next, stopping to celebrate allows us to see the whole picture.
7. Give up anything that may be holding you back
If you are angry or feel resentment toward another or yourself, let it go. This may be one of the greatest characteristics of successful people. They release anything that is not consistent with the life they want to live. This can be tough, but it is possible with practice.
Williams & Kunkel are all about helping business owners achieve the thrill of success. If having a trusted advisor helps you get your goal-setting on track, call our Flower Mound team today at 972-446-1040 to see if we can help.
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