Recently, I met with a Tony Robbins Results Coach about my goals for 2015. Though I decided not to move forward with his services, the initial consult was incredibly beneficial.
I thought I was pretty good at goal setting. However, from just one conversation with this coach, I gained some powerful ideas to improve how I approach writing and achieving goals.
The coach’s name was Bruce. A few days before our meeting, his assistant sent me one small task. I was to email her my top three goals for the coming year.
At the scheduled time, Bruce called. After a few minutes of pleasantries during which he told me about his professional background, Bruce got down to business.
“Arvell,” He said, “when I look at how you’ve listed your goals, they look very weak. Goals need to be specific and sexy. In order to allure you to work them daily, you have to put them in a form that motivates you.”
From there he explained the common idea of having SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and with a Timeline.
I had known about the concept of SMART goals, but I’d never heard the language of making them sexy. So I thought about the benefits of enunciating goals in an attractive form. Then I understood immediately.
Last year, I set a few goals similar to how I always do. But like I have in the past, they were pretty general and vague. Half of them were achieved with little to no effort, but the second half were challenging and I failed to get even close to achieving them.
Bruce expanded the idea.
He explained that it would help me to start looking beyond the goal to the effect of the goal. Perhaps I want to achieve this or that, but why? If I could describe the why behind the goal I could keep myself motivated. And when it comes to achieving goals; after the New Year hype ends, staying motivated is key.
Then we started to look specifically at my financial goals.
Bruce broke things down. He particularized, saying,”If your financial goal was to make, say, $150,000 in 2015, you wouldn’t just say, ‘I want to make $150,000.’ If you were already making $90,000, you really just need to make an additional $60,000. Or to put it monthly, you need an extra $5,000 more per month in profit from business.”
That did make a lot of sense.
Working on a monthly revenue profit goal is much more tangible than a general annual one. Especially when the annual goal isn’t’ understood in daily and weekly targets.
Bruce also pointed out a major mindset required for achieving goals. He said my goals needed to be non-negotiable. He illustrated with a question, “Arvell, which one of your goals are essential and which ones are optional?”
I sensed this might be a trick question so I took my time thinking before I responded. Eventually I said, with a bit of hesitation, “Uh. . . All of them are essential?”
“Good answer!” he said. “If you don’t think the goal is essential, you’ll put it off. No matter how big or small, you mustn’t think of your goals as optional if you really want to reach them.”
To illustrate the point, he asked me to imagine receiving an urgent phone call from my wife. What if she called and described a $40,000 medical emergency for my daughter, necessary in 90 days.
Bruce asked me, “If you received that phone call is there any doubt behind whether or not you could come up with that money?”
Though I hated to imagine it, I did understand. I responded, “Of course not!”
Bruce said, “This is the same mindset you need to achieve any worthwhile goal.”
Hmm… I never thought this way. Goals have been great and exciting but never seen as critical. Like I mentioned earlier, perhaps that’s what has kept me from consistently pushing hard to obtain the more aggressive targets.
Finally, Bruce also told me that I needed to visualize what achieving the goal would or could do for myself or my family. A financial goal may or may not be that motivating. However, if the money obtained would bring a level of peace or joy or comfort to my wife and daughter, that could give me the necessary trigger to stay motivated.
If I finished my book by a certain date, the feeling of accomplishment and personal pride would be wonderful. Seeing the face of my daughter and being an inspiration for her are really the kinds of whys behind my goals that could push me to keep persevering.
Here were my takeaways:
1. Write down your goals in an exciting and specific way.
2. Write down the whys or benefits behind the goals with a description of how achieving it will affect your life.
3. Only set goals that you can judge mandatory and nonnegotiable.
4. See if the goal can be broken down into monthly targets or daily routines to focus on. Make it a specific goal instead of a big, generic idea.
Ok. That’s all I got.
If this helps you, please share it with someone.
If have additional ideas, share them with me in the Comments section or @ArvellCraig on Twitter.
Lastly, you may also want to put a reminder to yourself in four months or so to check in with yourself and see how your plan coming along.
Create a great day!
-Arvell