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Home » Business Owners

How are you going to achieve your goals?

As part of our Annual Review series I talked about reflecting on the achievements of the past year before setting my sights on the current year.

If you’ve already gone through the process outlined above, then what did you learn?

– what went well

– what could have gone better

For me, the creation of this site and the number of site visitors and being able to attract an interview with new authors are some of the highlights.

What could have gone better, is that I’ve been disappointed with the amount of time I’ve been able to spend on exercise following a sporting injury in 2008.

Taking these lessons into account I am now in the position to start the process of making my plans for 2010.

4 Step Process

When planning for the year ahead, I adopt a 4 step planning process to determine what I’m going to do over the coming 12 months, starting with:

Dreaming

Dreaming – Is the start of the process. What do I want to achieve? A dream car, a dream holiday or spending time with the family. Do you have a dream chart? If you have have one is this up to date and current? Have you have updated the pictures or statements for the items that you have already achieved?

However, to make a dream come true you need to – Idealise, Visualise, Verbalise and Materialise all aspects of your Dreams.

In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill describes the power of affirmations, saying out aloud what you want to achieve and by when. You need to repeat these affirmations regularly.

Do you do affirmations and visualisations twice a day…?

Goals

Goal – Next I update my goals list. This is a list of everything I want to achieve (which may well extend over 12 months)

Do you have a list of your 101 (that’s right 101!) goals?

These need to be listed in priority and dated as to when these are going to be achieved. You can make them a certainty by planning when you are going to do these by adding what resources you need e.g. money(if any) to do these.

Putting the acquisition of the required resource into your plans then focuses you on providing that resource so you can achieve your goals.

Plan

Next we plan.

Plan – I have a 90 Day Plan which I update every quarter, this identifies what I am going to do to generate the business, or what actions to take to provide the resources to achieve my goals.

The plan must include the expected outcome of your weekly, monthly and quarterly activities and must also have identified the performance indicators in your daily tasks that are linked to your actionable metrics / key performance indicators that are measured at least daily.

Staying focused on your actionable metrics gives you the focus you need every day to ‘Do’.

Just DO IT

This is the most important element of the planning process.

Do – You now just need to do what your plan tells you to do. You need to have the focus, discipline and commitment to actually do it.

The four step process is summarised as:

DREAM – GOAL – PLAN – DO

What’s your Dreams for 2010?

« How to get the job...

7 Comments »

  • Karl Foxley said:

    Having goals is so important for business and personal development.

    ‘Just do it’… absolutely, without action you can’t really complain when you don’t achieve the goals you set yourself.

    All the best for 2010.

    Karl
    .-= Karl Foxley´s last blog ..My Number 1 Tip For Achieving Your Blogging Goals =-.

    • Matthew Needham said:

      Thanks for your comment Karl. You’re absolutely spot on here. Too many people fail to acheive their true potential by failing to act.

      • TheInfoPreneur said:

        Having a plan and more importantly a way to achieve that plan is vital but ultimately it comes down to doing it.

        I often relate this to sky diving, there is no progression to doing that, just put on your chute and jump!

        • Eleanor Edwards said:

          Hi Matthew,
          I remember reading this post a couple of days ago (and enjoying it you’ll be pleased to learn ;)) but after a shove from James and his latest post, I’ve come back and realised I’ve been guilty of lurking ;). I vow from here on in to always leave a comment when I’ve gotten value from someone elses work.

          I recognize from reading your post that I am rubbish at writing long term plans and goals. I found myself going through the steps above mentally. I say I’ll go back and do it properly but I never do!

          If I’m totally frank, it feels a bit self-indulgent to spend all this time writing lots of head stuff when I have children to feed, a charity to promote and a husband to communicate with 😉

          I know logically that what you say makes good sense (hence why I’ll be hitting the re-tweet button right after I hit ‘publish’) but I just know I won’t get round to doing it.

          Eleanor
          P.S. Thanks for having the WordPressTouch plugin installed. Makes life sooooo much easier 😉

          • Karen said:

            This is great advice, Matthew

            I have a ‘vision board’ of pictures that I’ve cut out of magazines to what I want to do, have, and achieve in my life. The visualization aspect of achieving goals is very important, as well as the steps you’ve mentioned in your article.

            Speaking of 101 goals, that’s the first thing I asked my readers to do in my Just For Today Challenge. On Day 1, I asked them to create a list of “101 Things To Do Before I Die” – having this list is a great motivator. 🙂

            Karen
            .-= Karen´s last blog ..Just For Today Challenge, Day 12: Save Your Money =-.

            • John Paul@MakeMoneyEveryDay said:

              Being takes hard work, hard work everyday. Problem is people don’t want to commit to the work.

              Vision boards, dream boards etc. are a waste of time.

              If you want something bad enough and are willing to put the work in to get it, you wont need any board to remind you why your working so hard.

              Make a plan and follow it each and everyday.
              .-= John Paul@MakeMoneyEveryDay´s last blog ..Just Released: New Twitter Dummy Guide =-.

              • Alex said:

                I do believe, that the key to achieve set goal is in small steps, but, please do forget , that withot true desier for achievment and our persistence will take us to our goal.
                The thing is, that in life we have some many external influences, that we forget to stay focus. And that’s the main reason why it takes much oonger to achieve our goal, or maybe this even eman, not achieving it at all.
                Therefore, BE PERSISTENT and fight for your goals.

                Cheers,
                Alex