I could go on about this for hours, but I’ve limited myself to 7 key success factors in business that I think changes the game completely.
- Think BIG!
If your goal doesn’t represent an important achievement for you and doesn’t serve as a challenge to you, it’s most unlikely that you’ll be motivated enough to sustain the effort(s) required to complete it.
Do away with all that “SMART goals” stuff about ‘realistic’ and ‘achievable’. That pattern was created for setting goals for your workers working you in a big organization.
Research conducted has revealed that people set much more challenging goals for themselves than the goals others set for them. It’s all comes down to personal choice, I believe.
- Look at your whole life.
When you have plans and goals for your working life, that’s where you’ll tend to spend most of your time.
When you set important goals outside of work, that’s where you will focus almost all of your attention as well.
Now:
If you desire a balanced life, be prepared to make plans for all aspects of your life. Remember to include your nearest and dearest goals in the planning for goals that affect your life outside of work.
- Get clear about why each goal is important to you.
Naturally, your values drive your behaviour so your goals need to connect with your values if you are to take the necessary actions to achieve them.
If the goal isn’t important at all or just a little important, it’s unlikely you’ll achieve it unless it can be done easily and quickly. You end up not enjoying it at all; I mean– where’s the satisfaction in a goal like that?
For each of your goals you want to achieve by carrying out actions following our key success factors in business ask yourself this, “Why is this important to me?” and “What will that do for me?” Keep asking the questions until you’re clear about what each goal means to you (answered the question/questions yourselves).
- Work out how you can achieve the goal.
Or better still, what are the first few actions you can take that will get you started.
Many a time, the entire path isn’t clear at the first glance, so don’t allow that to be a barrier to getting warmed up. Look out to identify the best way(s) to make some initial progress and plan in time to work out the later steps as you go along.
You may not possess the best knowledge on how to do something, you may need take lessons to learn a new skill or to do some research, but there will always be something you CAN do to get going.
- When you make your plans, set aside specific time slots to do the activities that will move you closer to each of your goals.
This could be a specified regular time of the day (e.g. from 12am-4am), week (maybe Mondays to Fridays) or month(s), depending on the type and duration of the goal. If your life doesn’t lend itself to a lot of routines, simply make a list of the amount of time needed for each activity and then allocate each activity to a specific time each day, week or month. The key here is to make sure that you are making frequent progress towards your goals.
- Write down your goals and keep them somewhere you will see them often – in your mobile phones, tablets, diary or time planner, your wallet or other gadgets, or a poster on the wall of your office, library, kitchen or favourite place to think.
Some group of people love a visual representation of the goal(s), others prefer would prefer words only. Carry out experiments to find out which motivates you the most.
- Build into your plan plenty of time for ‘standing back’ and taking stock of your progress as well as reviewing the plan, amending it and also celebrating your successes along the way.
You’ll need to keep record of how well you’re doing if you’re going to sustain the activities. Most especially if the planned goal is huge and long-term.
Equally, avoid checking progress so often that you can’t see any changes. Keep the intervals long enough that you can see you’ve achieved something every time. Enjoyed reading our 7 key success factors in business? Kindly share and drop your comments below.
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