The fifth of the 7 things not to do to achieve your goals is to ignore your past performance.

1. Don’t include “shoulds” – do things because you have an appreciation for the benefit to be gained or the pain to be avoided that is associated with the goal
2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye – give yourself a range to shoot for instead of a single point.  In addition to the target, identify a lesser amount that you would be pleased with.  At the same time establish what you would consider a stretch goal.
3. Don’t “try” anything -  write your goals in a way that identifies the actions you will take, not what you will try to do.  In the words of the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “Do or do not … there is no try.”
4. Don’t focus on other people – if your goal is dependent upon others, re-write it to only include the action you can directly control.

5. Don’t ignore your past performance

   While every day is a new start and you are not a slave to your past, understanding and acknowledging your past performance can prove very valuable in understanding the probability of achieving your new goals.  If, in the past, you have been able to consistently excel in the area in which you are setting your goal, then maybe it’s time to do a little stretching. Pick a target that is more challenging than you normally would.

   If, on the other hand, you have not had much success in a particular area in the past, then it makes more sense to be conservative with your goal.  Let’s take blogging for example.  If you have set social media goals in the past and have not been able to Tweet or write an article more than once every other week, it is not realistic to set a goal to write a daily blog post.  Weekly posting may be a more realistic goal.  Once you can do that consistently, then revise your goal to do it more frequently.

   The rest of the list

6. Don’t forget who you are
7. Don’t be vague

The fourth of the 7 things not to do to achieve your goals is to not focus on other people.

1. Don’t include “shoulds” – do things because you have an appreciation for the benefit to be gained or the pain to be avoided that is associated with the goal
2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye – give yourself a range to shoot for instead of a single point. In addition to the target, identify a lesser amount that you would be pleased with. At the same time establish what you would consider a stretch goal.
3. Don’t “try” anything – write your goals in a way that identifies the actions you will take, not what you will try to do. In the words of the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “Do or do not … there is no try.” 

4. Don’t focus on other people

   It is very tempting and often a subtle nuance often overlooked, to include the actions of others in your goal setting.   However, setting goals around others’ behavior is not too effective and can even be demotivating.

   Setting a goal of having someone – a student, child, co-worker, employee – learn something is an example of a goal that focuses on other people. I cannot do anything about their learning. If they choose not to pay attention, study the material, do the homework, or in general not participate in the process, then you would have no control whatsoever over your ability to accomplish the goal.   How frustrating.

   If instead, you made their learning your objective and set engaging in good teaching practices as your goal, then you regain your control to affect the outcome.  By checking your outcomes relative to your objective, you can modify your approach.  You can also objectively measure your actions independent of other people’s actions to determine how well you did your part.

   Here’s some food for thought – in business, how might setting a goal of increased revenue be inappropriately focused on other people?

   The rest of the list:

5. Don’t ignore your past performance
6. Don’t forget who you are
7. Don’t be vague

The third of the 7 things not to do to achieve your goals is to avoid crafting goals around what you will try to do.

1. Don’t include “shoulds” – do things because you have an appreciation for the benefit to be gained or the pain to be avoided that is associated with the goal
2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye – give yourself a range to shoot for instead of a single point.  In addition to the target, identify a lesser amount that you would be pleased with.  At the same time establish what you would consider a stretch goal.

3. Don’t “try” anything

   Using the word “try” in your goals is the same as broadcasting a loud and clear message to yourself that you have no intention whatsoever of succeeding.  If you were to ask someone whether they will have a specific assignment completed by noon tomorrow and they responded with, “I’ll try,” you would have almost no confidence that you would see the completed assignment by noon.

   If, on the other hand, the person responded that they have blocked out what they believe to be a sufficient amount of time, have done all the background research they think in necessary, and have a college schedule to proof read the work by 9:30 in the morning, you’d think they were serious.

   What’s the difference?

   The difference is that the first person is communicating the doubt, the second is communicating what they are doing to increase the odds of success.  You still don’t know that the second person is going to complete the assignment, but their internal messages are screaming that they intend to do everything possible to meet the deadline and to meet it with quality.  They are focused on what they will do, not what they will try to accomplish.

   In the words of the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “Do or do not … there is no try.”

   The rest of the list

4. Don’t focus on other people
5. Don’t ignore your past performance
6. Don’t forget who you are
7. Don’t be vague

Accomplishing your goals can sometimes feel like climbing a Mount Everest – your confident you can start the journey strong but are less sure of your ability to finish.  Paying attention to the following list of things not to do can greatly increase your chances of reaching the summit.

1. Don’t include “shoulds” – do things because you have an appreciation for the benefit to be gained or the pain to be avoided that is associated with the goal
2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye – give yourself a range to shoot for instead of a single point.  In addition to the target, identify a lesser amount that you would be pleased with.  At the same time establish what you would consider a stretch goal.
3. Don’t “try” anything -  write your goals in a way that identifies the actions you will take, not what you will try to do.  In the words of the wise Jedi master, Yoda, “Do or do not … there is no try.”
4. Don’t focus on other people – if your goal is dependent upon others, re-write it to only include the action you can directly control.
5. Don’t ignore your past performance – if you haven’t been able to accomplish something in the past, it’s not reasonable to expect high performance.  Take baby steps if you need to and giant leaps when that is appropriate.
6. Don’t forget who you are – take your likes, preference, life purpose, etc. in to account when crafting your goals.
7. Don’t be vague – be specific enough in your wording so that you can clearly determine whether or not the goal has actually been met.

Yesterday, we started our journey through a list of things not to do in order to achieve your goals.  We started by going deeper in understanding our motives than merely setting goals because we should.  Today, we move on to our second don’t.

1. Don’t include “shoulds”

2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye

   There are very few things in life can be predicted with absolute certainty months in advance.  Given that why do we think it reasonable to set goals with absolute certainty build in to an inherently uncertain process.  This negates any progress made unless the specific target is achieved.  People often set weight loss goals (I’ll get to why this structure is something not to do in a later post in this series.)  If you set out to loose 35 pounds and only lose 32 did you fail?  Of course not.  So why not build yourself some slack in your goal setting.

   In business, forecasting is a common practice and every well run business has one.  These are used by boards to evaluate the performance of the CEO and by banks to evaluate the health of the companies to which they lend money.  CEOs aren’t necessarily deemed poor performers and companies are not necessarily considered high risk if they don’t hit their budgeted number.  Based upon past experience, there is usually some margin of error allowed – perhaps 5-10% depending upon the type of business.

   Learning from this practice, goals should have a target – something equivalent to the weight you would like to hit or number placed in the budget – and a minimally acceptable number based upon past performance.  This minimal number should require some level of effort and  make you feel as though have had to work for it.  It is not intended to be a sand bag or cop out but a realistic goal that symbolizing accomplishment.

   Just a minimum level and target are not sufficient.  Goals can be de-motivating if accomplished too easily.  If 35 pound is your targeted weight loss, what would it be like to reach 50 pounds.  A 10% increase in revenue seems doable, but a 25% increase would be phenomenal.  Go ahead and think about what an ultimate stretch goal might be.  Raymond Aaron call this the Outrageous goal in his MTO system that teaches these principles.

   The whole point of this don’t – not obsessing over the bull’s eye – is to give yourself a range to motivate yourself for any real progress you make towards your ultimate goal and to keep you motivated enough to shoot for phenomenal success.

   The rest of the list

3. Don’t “try” anything
4. Don’t focus on other people
5. Don’t ignore your past performance
6. Don’t forget who you are
7. Don’t be vague

Every year people set goals and every year people fail to achieve the goals they set.  I think this is called insanity – doing the same things the same way and expecting different results.

The fact of the matter is that goal setting has a tremendous impact on your ability to achieve your desired success levels in business and in life.  What is important is to do so in a way that is likely to garner results that are worth the effort.  I know all the studies that show that by just writing your goals down you are more likely to accomplish them.  Poorly written goals are better than none, so anything you do will be positive.

However, the phenomenally successful don’t just leave it up to chance.  Writing their goals down is something they all do – yet the list of things they don’t do makes a world of difference.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll cover one of seven things the phenomenally successful don’t do in order to achieve their goals.  Here is the first one: (Just to give you an idea of where we’re headed, I’m sharing the whole list now.)

1. Don’t include “shoulds”

   When your list of goals is loaded with things you “should” do, it is highly unlikely that you will stay motivated long enough to accomplish them.  In your personal life exercise is an example of a goal that many people set because they think they should do it.  Once you become an adult, it is hard to consistently engage in activities merely because you should.  A great example that is prevalent in business conversations today is the feeling that you should be using social media.

   Many companies start to establish a presence but have no real staying power and therefore yield few results.A better alternative is to dig a little deeper into why you would be compelled to engage in the activity and identify both the benefits you would gain from achieving the goal and the pain you would endure for not achieving it.  Having lots of energy and fitting into your favorite close may be some of the benefits you would gain from exercising.  Having to live on medication and needing to skip some of your favorite activities might be some of the pain you would have to endure.

   With social media, understanding exactly how you would benefit from the engagement will not only keep you more motivated but cause you to focus on more strategic activities that are linked to your success than you might otherwise do.  Instead of trying to gain lots of friends – regardless of whether or not they are in your target market – is less interesting than building your reputation as an expert in your field.  Since experts have an easier time selling than those that have not earned the trust of anyone, this type of activity should lead to increased revenue as well.

   The rest of the list

2. Don’t obsess over the bull’s eye
3. Don’t “try” anything
4. Don’t focus on other people
5. Don’t ignore your past performance
6. Don’t forget who you are
7. Don’t be vague

What are some of the “shoulds” that you have wrestled with in the past?  How might you set goals in those areas differently this year?

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Organic company growth is typically seen as something that is steady.  Five to twenty-five percent a year growth is deemed reasonable and in many cases aggressive.  Hockey stick growth, that which is 50, 75, 100+ percent growth in a single year and then sustained at high rates in a few subsequent years, is usually thought to only occur through acquisitions or mergers. This does not always have to be the case and a shift in planning processes may in fact make periods of rapid growth possible organically.

Frame of reference for planning makes a difference

Most planning processes are done annually and look at where a company is today as the basis for determining where things will be in the next year.  Realistic growth targets are established based upon current performance.  Forecasts are often done taking that growth out three to five years.  With the current situation as the frame of reference, it is difficult to justify large changes in growth with out an acquisition or some other exogenous force.

Since some companies do experience hockey stick growth organically, we know that it is possible.  What are rapidly growing companies doing that is different from those who experience modest growth and how to they plan for it?

Click here to read the whole post.