I’ve often discussed goal setting and why it is so important. Writing down your goals on paper (whether they are personal or professional) increases your chance of actually accomplishing them. This is actually one of the reasons that most New Year’s Resolutions never come to fruition – they are never written down. Without putting pen to paper, your goals are really just wishes. But once you verbalize your goals, and create a clear plan for achieving them, they are moved from the clutter of bright ideas and wishful thinking into the realm of the possible.

What do you do if you want to take a fantastic vacation? You plan your trip. First, you decide where to go. You are located in point A and you want to travel to point B. That is your goal. Now how do you accomplish it? Perhaps you’d like to hire a car and driver so you can relax and read for the 1,000 mile trip. But as you work through your plans, you realize that driving would be neither time- nor cost-effective. So you tweak your plan, investigating airline and railroad fares and itineraries in order to continue moving in a direction toward your original goal – successfully.

The example may be a simplistic one, but it shows how goal setting and planning should at least become a part of your weekly exercise. If your goal is to sell 10,000 widgets in the third quarter, what is your plan for reaching that goal? Have you stepped up your marketing program to drive more lead generation? Are you going to offer a bundle package to drive more sales? If you don’t write it all down, will you still continue to work toward making the mark? Probably not. And if you don’t write it down, along with a plan to accomplish your goal, how will you know if your time and money is being well spent? You’ll have no idea how to measure the return on your investment.

Are you committed to really pushing the envelope and reaching for things that might seem hard to achieve? I challenge you to go for it. Now is not the time to sit back and wait for something great to happen. You must take the grasp the reins, so to speak, and drive your company forward in a positive motion with all of your wisdom, energy, creativity, and experience. Remember, goals don’t necessarily have to be attached to a concrete dollar number. They can be as simple as writing three blogs a week or reading one educational article a day. You may have many mini-goals that actually help you achieve a larger umbrella goal. Regardless of size or impact though, keep these few things in mind in order to achieve whatever goal it is that you set.

- Commit your goal to paper. Whether you write those goals down on paper, log them into a spreadsheet, or key your ideas into your smartphone, committing your goals to the written word is the first step to achieving them. Remember, too, that you can have short-term AND long-term goals. What do you plan to accomplish in the next three months? Six months? Five years? Ten years? Make a wish and turn it into a goal by putting it in writing.

- Make your goals visible. After you have them on paper, post your goals where you can see them on a daily basis. If you wrote them down in a file on your computer or Blackberry, print them out or better yet, scan them in and make them your screen saver. The more you’re reminded of what you’ve set your sights on, the better the chance you have of working toward and accomplishing them.

- Create realistic, measurable goals. I want to lose weight is not a goal. It’s a hope and a dream. I want to lose 10 pounds by June 1 is a goal. It has a definable element that can easily be measured (you either step on the scale on June 1 and have lost 10 pounds or you haven’t) and you have a deadline as to when you need to meet that goal.

- Create a plan to achieve the goal. Obviously you’re not going to write down your goals and then just wait for them to happen. You must create logical steps that will successfully get you from point A to point B. It sounds simple enough, but keep an open mind as you create these strategies. What happens if, three weeks into your plan, your vendor runs out of widgets and you won’t even have 10,000 to deliver even if you get the orders? Consider what you might do if all of a sudden, a new state-of-the-art widget was available that was clearly better than the one you planned on selling. Would you still sell the original one or would you revisit your goals and tweak them accordingly? Stay on task but be flexible in order to adapt to changing situations. Allow yourself to make changes along the way, so long as those changes still contribute to achieving the original end result.

The hardest part about setting and then reaching goals is actually remembering to establish those objectives in the first place. We get so caught up in the day-to-day operations of our businesses and obsessed with our “To Do” lists, that we forget to sit back and look at the big picture. In reality, if your “To Do” list is full of tactics that will help accomplish your goal, then by all means, keep working your way down that list. However, if you find yourself simply going through the motions and completing busy work, then it’s time to step back and revisit what your goals really are.

A dedicated marketing professional, Michelle Kabele has been helping technology companies develop award-winning channel partner programs and marketing strategies for over 10 years. Michelle has worked extensively with small businesses throughout North America.

Michelle has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management (Evanston, Ill.)

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