Hope that this post finds everyone happy and healthy. I wanted to start out today with a quote from an unknown author, which is “Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; can’t into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don’t just think it – ink it!” I want to underscore the importance of setting goals for your life and documenting these goals for your personal benefit. This (seemingly) simple act can help you achieve great thing!
We all have hopes and dreams, in our personal as well as our business lives. Everyone has dreams of the things that they want to achieve in their business, whether it is having control over your personal schedule, achieving financial independence, having widespread recognition or all of the above, we all have a vision of what it would mean for us to be successful.
Having these goals is a normal and healthy part of our existence. Goals keep us striving to achieve greater things in life. Amazingly, we can enhance the influence that these goals have on our success by simply writing them down. The simple act of documenting our goals has a remarkable influence on our ability to achieve them; a fact that has been confirmed by scientific study (Dr. Gail Matthews, Dominican University).
An important part of success in our businesses (and in our lives) is measured by how close we believe we are to achieving our goals. Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle stated that “Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.” We all strive to achieve the goals that we have created for ourselves. We are motivated by them and are happy when we attain them.
To be successful in our business, we must first determine what our goals will be. We should start by establishing short, intermediate and long term goals for our business. This framework will allow us to create a definitive vision for what we wish to achieve in our business. It is beneficial to set these incremental goals, as these goals become signposts on our pathway to success. Setting incremental benchmarks allow us to monitor our progress, and gives us a point of reference to keep track of the growth of our business.
Equally important is the fact that we must celebrate the fact that we have reached one of our benchmarks. If you set a goal to perform a certain number of inspections for the first quarter of the year and you reach that goal, that is cause for celebration. And while your reward can be something as simple as lunch at your favorite restaurant or as over the top as buying yourself a new television, the simple fact of rewarding yourself for a job well done can have a beneficial psychological effect, encouraging you to strive toward your next goal.
I will leave you today with a quote from baseball player, manager and coach, Yogi Berra, who famously said “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” Be sure to document your goals; they’ll help to serve as signposts along your journey, and keep you from ending up someplace else.
I welcome all feedback (both positive and negative) on this post.
Please take a moment to leave a comment below. Thank you!
Want to be an Influencer in Your Field? Share This Post!
Thanks, Joe
