Setting and achieving goals have been key to my entire life. From the earliest I can remember being around seven years old I started setting lofty goals. I wanted to make the Olympic team, a national team, or become a professional athlete. Happily, I can boast many successes – I was a nationally ranked swimmer, silver medal-winning rower at the national championships, and I made the Canadian senior men’s national rugby team and went on to enjoy an eight-year professional rugby career in Europe despite only starting to play the game at the age of 24. Afterward, I used that same focus to get a university degree, earn various certifications, build championship programs and teams at a local, national and international level, and start my own companies.
I find that I function best when I have something to work towards, otherwise I find that I can succumb to feelings of depression and anxiety. Goals and growth keep me moving forward, fill me full of energy, and help me to focus. You see, I’m the kind of person who wants to leave an impact. Now, as I grow older, I realise that I want to share my experience with others to help improve their lives. Again, this is a lofty goal. However, I find great fulfillment in teaching others and I appreciate a challenge.
I promise to share with you the biggest secrets of goal achievement that I have learned throughout my life.
First thing, I’ve used and prescribed to others a goal-setting template. They are a great way to crystallize a person’s thinking, make a plan, and visualize a successful outcome. I will provide you with some right now.
The SMART goals acronym is the most commonly known goal-setting template. It is the model against which all others measure themselves. SMART stands for:
Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Realistic or relevant (you pick); Time-bound
Apparently though, according to at least 1 Writer in Boston, FAST goals are better than SMART goals. They come from the MIT Sloan School of Management so they must be good, I guess. FAST stands for:
F – goals are Frequently discussed; A – Ambitious in scope; S – measured by Specific metrics; T – Transparent for all to see.
One of my favorites is using PURE in a combination with others. PURE goals are:
Positively stated; Under your control; Realistic; Ethical
CLEAR Goals are so great that I found two different examples of how to use the acronym as a template. My favourite version of the two comes to us directly from local success and leadership guru, Olympic gold medalist hero, and all-around great guy Adam Kreek. His excellent and effective version follows as:
Collaborative; Limited in time and scope; Emotional; Appreciable; Refinable
If you were to continue research on the Internet for various methods to build goal-setting templates you would find a whole bunch more. In just a short cursory search, in addition to the templates above, I also found the acronyms WHOOPIE, HARD, and for the surrealists out there VAGUE. Each is touted as being better than the previous.
Find the one that you like. I’m not here to advocate one acronym over another. In fact, I use a combination of a bunch of them. I like the ambition in FAST; the specific and measurable components of SMART; the positively stated, under your control, and ethical components of PURE; and I like the emotional component of Adam Kreek’s version of CLEAR. With teams, I agree that Collaboration is also key. Three of those four have some version of realism and one is about ambition. I guess then that my version would be (C)ASMUPEER. That’s probably not going to be very marketable but that’s not really my point nor my goal for this piece.
Any of those templates would be of benefit. Pick one, or a combination like me, and start getting your thoughts around who it is you want to be, what it is you want to do, where it is you want to go, the steps to take, and what you’re willing to do to get there. Now comes one of the big secrets…
After you’ve used your template to define your goal and the steps to get there…
Act! Take action!
Take your first step towards the end goal. Like Lao Tzu said, “Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” Many people write down all kinds of goals. They write them down, they tell others about them, and they promise themselves that they will do it this time but they don’t take the first step. Brian Tracy called it being shipwrecked on “Some Day Isle (I’ll).” Someday I’ll do this, someday I’ll do that. I don’t and I won’t get stuck there. This article, for example, is nothing more than me avoiding Someday Isle and taking small steps towards something much greater. Again, listen to Lao Tzu, “Great acts are made up of small deeds.”
I’ll use my most recent goals as an example. Here it is:
My personal lofty goal is to change the world and as is clearly stated, I can only get there one step at a time. Specifically, I want to change the predominant transactional business leadership model that persists today to one where a transformational approach is the norm, not the exception. I want to help create a world where we are all building one another up instead of tearing each other down. Demolition is always easier than constructing an edifice. There is a masterpiece inside all of us and I know that a transformational leadership approach can and will reveal the true potential of an individual or an organization—their true self and personal masterpiece. Organizations that do this have way less worker turnover while enjoying significant increases in worker engagement, production, and production quality all of which ultimately lead to sustained increases in annual revenue.
Trust me, there are few things more intrinsically rewarding for me than helping people and organizations expand and transform their mental models and achieve beyond their wildest dreams.
To reach my goal I have been acting, in action, doing stuff. Any small thing that I can do to get me closer to my goal. Since it is such a massive goal, I break it down into smaller manageable pieces that I know will eventually add up to a fantastic outcome. I repeat, when they are Ambitious, sometimes what works best is breaking it down into smaller sub-goals. For example, I read and research topics daily pertaining to transformational leadership, emotional intelligence, motivation, teams, coaching, and pretty much anything slightly related to empowering a person to reach their ultimate potential. I have built a Gold Seal leadership development course called Lead to Succeed that espouses the Transformational Method and I have delivered it within the construction industry for the last three-plus years. It’s exciting to say that my Lead to Succeed leadership course has been so successful I’ve been asked to build out an entire program. I am now doing that. Moreover, since building my course, I have become a certified executive coach in order to add to my expertise and flight of services. In addition, I have started writing blog pieces like this one to share my reading, research, and experiences with you.
In the meantime, I will continue to help develop today’s and tomorrow’s leaders, I will write more blog posts, and I will be preparing speeches for my keynotes. A single step, even the slightest advance, is movement in the right direction toward a fantastic journey. I know that there will be non-days because they happen but my goals and actions align with my values so I know that I will power on. And I will continue without any guarantees or assurances other than this is what fills me up and motivates me to go forward one step at a time. Besides…
Nobody who ever gave his best regretted it – George Halas
Now that you have some secrets, get after it! Go for it! Whatever your little gremlin tells you what you cannot do, do it anyway. One single step will launch you on your journey. Take it!
If you are still struggling…
How do you set your goals? How successful are you at attaining them? Do you use a template? Which one(s)? How do you create your action-oriented mindset and goal-directed behaviour? What has you stuck? What is holding you back from achieving your goals? Would you like help? That’s what I do.
This article was written by Tony Healy, BA, CEC, Coach Empowering You Toward Your Ultimate Potential at Optimum Performance Coaching Canada & EverydaySafe EHS Consulting Inc.