I recently published a guest article on DamnGoodManager.com about doing performance reviews as a manager for your direct reports. I suspect I have a lot more readers here who are not managers but do need to prepare for their own performance reviews often. This post is about some tips on how to do that and also useful since its from a manager’s perspective (yours truly). I encourage you to read through both posts since you will see some points from the manager’s perspective that are looked for and can also then better prepare for your next performance review.

So, this article is about the things I highly recommend you do in your job to ensure you get great performance reviews, year after year! Unfortunately there is no quick answer or magic potion to brew up that will guarantee you a great review as every workplace is difference and some things simply depend on your manager. Even still, there are some specific things that if consistently practiced, will make a big difference to improve your reviews every year. Here they are:

Focus on your Main Objectives

Confirm these with your boss. Ask to meet and discuss them, so you can understand your job description and ask all the questions required so you will clearly understand what your priorities should be according to YOUR boss. If they are going to be evaluating you, you better know what they are expecting from you! If you have regular meetings or one-on-ones with your boss, that is the best time to ask and help understand these. If you don’t have one-on-ones or regular meetings with your boss, ask for some time to review this and ALSO ask to start meeting on a regular basis with your boss so you have a chance to discuss your performance and priorities and to get more regular feedback from them. Take the responsibility to make this happen if it is not already. You simply can’t afford NOT to and if you are not meeting with your boss, you cannot possible know exactly what they are expecting from you.

Make Commitments and Tell Your Boss

The only way to impress your boss and get a great review is to not only do what is expected, but to do AT LEAST what is expected. If you can make a commitment to go above and beyond that and then deliver on that, you will be highly regarded. Decide on some area that you are willing to work to excel at and tell your boss exactly what you intend to do. Delivering on something that YOU set out to do will impress. This is far more valuable than over-delivering on something asked of you. That initiative you show and desire to excel will be extremely helpful towards earning a great review.

Know Your Boss’ Job

If you know your boss’ job and can see areas that you are able to help with, you should do so. Any responsibilities you can take on that specifically free up time for your boss, is going to be the most valuable time you can spend at work, especially in their eyes. Offer to help every chance you get and ALWAYS be willing to take on new work asked of you. This may mean juggling other priorities, delegating your own tasks or simply eliminating low priority work. The things that fall through the cracks are often completely overlooked anyway.

Be Reliable and Consistent

Work consistent hours at your workplace as much as possible. Even if you have flex time, changing your hours often and having gaps in your availability even if its the same amount of hours, never looks as good to a boss so consistency is very useful. I recommend starting earlier than most as early rising statistically get more done and are more likely to complete their goals and achievements. Assume your boss knows this statistic as well, so starting early is a good thing. A side note when it comes to consistency; don’t EVER complain about or use traffic as an excuse for being late and try not to drastically changing your work schedule from day to day or week to week. Even if you change how you get to work from day to day, do what you can do on your own time, to adjust things so you arrive at the same time consistently. Don’t give the impression that you sacrifice your work time when you arrive later than usual because of personal travel arrangements.

Being consistent and reliably on time will build confidence in you as a loyal, dependable worker. This is important. Being consistent also means leaving at a consistent time. A lot of people feel that working late hours looks good but it doesn’t! Delivering results looks good, not how many hours it takes to do that. If you can leave consistently and still deliver, you show character and balance with your home life. Its great to be willing to work late when asked or when needed to get a deliverable completed, but a consistent worker who gets there job done well and on time is always better than someone who is having to put in extra time to deliver the same thing. Often people who work very extended hours are seen as people who waste much time during the day and so have to work late to catch up each day. This is not a good impression to give. A consistent schedule and work ethic shows dedication and trust in your ability.

When At Work, Work!

Keep all your personal activities away from your work. Don’t surf personal sites, personal email, social networking sites or any other "home" activity at the office / workplace. Oh, and turn your personal cell phone off or at least to silent mode. Personally, I recommend this even for breaks and at lunch as much as possible. Do some reading, online research (work related) or socializing and relationship building during down time at work, not personal stuff. This looks FAR more productive to your boss and peers and builds the confidence in your work ethic and productivity. Oh, and if you don’t think your boss notices the time you spend on facebook or checking the latest sports stats, you’re wrong! They do notice and it affects their impression of you.

You do Have to Talk to Your Boss

Talk to your boss regularly. Daily if at all possible. Keep him / her informed of any concerns (and indicate your reasons why), significant progress, and even setbacks or delays. If you are sharing news about a problem or setback, always provide some kind of plan to help resolve the problem and get things back on track.

You boss is looking for results, so keep this in mind when you share anything with them. Always offer some solution or suggestion for any problem and NEVER just dump the problem on them. Ask them to help YOU resolve it and make sure you offer to resolve it yourself with their suggestions or advice on how to proceed. This VERY often opens new opportunities that seem tough like new responsibilities but it is exactly these things that will impress your boss. Being willing to deliver bad news to a customer, dealing with a personal conflict with another person, or even approaching a peer about poor performance, will definitely impress your boss. NEVER expect them to deal with a problem you bring to their attention unless they say it is theirs to handle and don’t want you involved. Still offer, even if they first offer to take it on themselves.

These types of examples are great things to learn if you are not yet doing them and all helpful for you to deal with and not dump on your boss. The more chances you give your boss to see that you can handle things that they have to normally do themselves, the more impressed they will be.

Review Your Own Performance

Review your own performance regularly, work on your goals weekly and inform your boss in writing with a monthly status report. Don’t ask if you can send it to them or it they want it, just do it no matter what. They will read it and they will find it informative and helpful even if its just a summary of what they already know. That is unlikely, its much more likely a monthly status report is the best window into your job that your boss has and they will really appreciate it and the initiative you take by sending it to them every single month. Start them off by explaining to your boss that you do them as part of your weekly and monthly planning to ensure you are on track with your priorities and goals and that you also want to make sure that they (your boss) are well informed on your progress, what you are working on and what to expect of you.

You really should be evaluating your own performance in your career anyway since you are the only one responsible for it, not your boss or anyone else. I recently wrote another article specifically about taking control and manage your own career . So, schedule yourself time each week to work on your yearly goals and the activities from any previous performance reviews you want to reinforce and improve on. Put those details and others in a monthly status report. Other elements to include are:

• Project updates you are involved on or leading
• Completed deliverables this month
• Summary of new things that you have learned or studied that month (doesn’t have to be strictly work related)
• Progress and actions taken toward any goals set
• Review of any existing responsibilities with your job
• Any major hurdles in progress or that your surpassed
• Next Month Forecast: Your main one or two activities planned for the next month, what would you like to accomplish

All of this should fit on a single page of paper or so. It should be kept brief and to the point. Send it on the same day every month (by email is fine), keep the subject line consistent each month and include the date. You need to do this because your boss WILL come back to these when they prepare your performance review and it will make their job much easier if its all easy to find. That is yet another great reason to do this monthly. Other things it provides you is a plan for the month of what to focus on and to focus on results as well as a clear indication of what you are working on so that your boss has a chance to correct or change any priorities LONG before your next review. This ensures you work on the right stuff and your boss knows it every single month.

Posted by Mike King under Business | 2 Comments »

The title of this article saying this list is to “Fast Track” isn’t really true. This list is to provide tips and behaviors to follow that will make a significant difference in how you perceive others, in how they perceive you and will help to make you more successful in your career and other related life activities. That was way too long for a title however so I choose the one I did!

So this list is what I believe it takes to make quick progress which I’ve learned from my own experience and by learning from and studying others. I hope it gives some inspiration to be more productive with your own progress and is useful to remind you of the things to focus on and to learn more about if they are unfamiliar to you. My list is not exactly ordered, but I did put the items first that I believe more strongly in, that is not to say they are the most beneficial though.

1. Demonstrate and hold true to your values and beliefs.
   This doesn’t matter where you apply it, it can give you so much in how others perceive you. It allows you to live and work with content in your actions and to earn respect from others who learn and understand your motives. Sticking to your values no matter what shows great integrity and consistency, which can definitely help you make progress in your career and in the trust you build with every relationship.
2. Volunteer and take on new work.
   Givers are great! Volunteer yourself and expect nothing back. Take joy in what you have to offer others. Take advantage of a giving attitude in a workplace, it is generally valued and seen as a leadership skill. It demonstrates an attitude of seeking for new responsibilities and gives you an opportunity to really take on responsibility and prove yourself with your actions. Develop a habit of being quick to volunteer for tasks (but don’t expect to always get it) and be willing to take on work no one else wants.You learn so many new things by volunteering and can experience great joy seeing your contribution and impact you have simply by choosing to give more than you are expected or asked. And those meaningful and heartfelt “Thank You” notes and words of appreciation can really make your day (or week or month).
3. Set and focus on planned goals.
   I’ve written several articles already on goals which you can jump to them here for more details. Goals really are the key to accomplishing whatever you desire and so setting them and focusing on planned goals is a critical step to advanced things in your life and career. If you do nothing else from this list, at least start using goals effectively.
4. Take risks.
   Many people are afraid to take risks in life and they keep themselves in a safe environment wherever possible. Life doesn’t simply come handing things out to people and it takes some initiative and risk to make quick progress. Taking risks of course introduces an element of possible failure and those that understand the benefits of failure can learn from it instead of being afraid of it. Its fine to make mistakes as long as you can learn from them and better yourself because of it.
   Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Albert EinsteinTwo specific ways to take risks are by challenging existing systems and processes you have experience with in order to improve it and to welcome change. Both of these have some element of risk and are often areas that you can improve things and make progress.
5. Communication Mastery
   What I mean by this is just to learn to master communication skills. Communication is such an important skill in so many areas its definitely worth learning more about it and learning to master it. A couple of short tips to improve by communication are:
   • Keep others informed of progress and problems when working together. Don’t try to own and hide anything. Honesty is the best practice.
   • Focus on your listening skills by practicing techniques that use reflective questions, paraphrasing and empathetic understanding.
   • Share / inspire your vision, values and passions to others.
6. Help Everyone
   People develop relationships quickly when you offer help. Helping others lets you share what you have learned with them and it often can enable others to take their own actions afterwards. A generous giving heart and attitude is a great personal attribute and generosity works in a recycling way.
7. Educate/Train constantly
   Continue to improve yourself and become more and more educated in the areas of your strengths so that you can be more effective with them. Learning to be an expert in areas can be done by self study and provides a valuable foundation to demonstrate knowledge and depth in an area of practice which will make you much more likely to succeed in that type of role. There are so many resources available nowadays to continually learn from, its easy for people with a learning attitude to keep learning more. It stimulates the brain and thought processes improving your reasoning, problem solving, communication foundation and your memory, among other things. I can’t stress this one enough.
8. Humility and Modesty
   Career progression often leads to a person having and showing pride in their accomplishments. This is dangerous and can be very negative towards others and easily come across as self admiration. This is why a humble and modest attitude is critical to making fast progress in life and your career. Humility balances you with others and keeps things at a level playing field without any distinction between your progress and that of others. Modesty is acting in a way that you don’t self advertise your accomplishments and that you give more credit to others than you take for yourself.
9. Compassion / Empathy for others
   Having compassion and empathy for others opens many doors of communication and builds trust in relationships. Truly understanding the needs of others and feeling some impact from those needs leads to many of the other areas on this list, but especially better communication and new avenues to help others.
10. Positive / Energetic Attitude.
    A positive attitude and energetic style is a very common leadership skill and it not only motivates others, but also drives a person internally. There is so much to say on this topic I can’t really even touch the surface. Keeping and controlling your mindset is a powerful tool in life and with a positive energy and passion in doing it, leads to great achievement. Consistency here and learning to reinforce your thoughts and displayed energies in a positive way can accelerate many areas of your life. This will continue to feed your desire so that you can easily get through difficult times and put in the focus needed to accomplish what you want, no matter what it takes.
11. Make Connections, Know and Like Everyone
    Relationships and connections to other people are one of best things in life, as well as a tool to make the progress you want. Connections provide you ways to find and give help, to share your stories, passions and feelings and open many doors that can continue to steer you on your path. If you are willing to see people as individuals without judging them you can focus on building meaningful relationships in your life. Give more to relationships than you ever expect in return. A fantastic book I’d recommend on this topic is Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi which I reviewed here.
12. Make the most of your working time
    My last tip to improving your productivity towards life and career progress is to make the most of the time you have. Eliminate the things you really don’t need to do and take the time to find your passions in life and focus your time and efforts on them. At work, make sure you are in fact working. Don’t use work time for anything personal, don’t surf the web for personal interests and minimize your personally discussions to breaks and after hour times. Ensure you are seen as a hard worker by your peers and colleagues and you will definitely make good progress in your career. Remember you don’t need to work more hours, just work those hours better. While this doesn’t provide success just on its own, it certainly helps when you focus on results and what is expected of you. Find ways to be more effective, not just efficient and use your work time for what you are paid to do, work!

This list only provides a starting point on each of the 12 items. I encourage you to look at which ones you currently focus on and how you could add the others into your routine. These are the things I’ve found by my experience and learning to make the most difference and I’m sure there are many others just as important. What additional items would you add to this list?

Posted by Mike King under Business & Life | 8 Comments »

Since your now reviewing your goals on a regular basis, the next step is to actually complete them and close them out. Completing them at this point is simple, its a matter of keeping to the measure you set for that goal and since you’ve kept it up to date and accurate, the measure should be simple. Its as simple as have you reached the goal yet? Yes or no. If not, then your still working towards it and really still in the tracking and monitoring step. If you have reached your goal, hurray! Celebrate! Take note of what you’ve accomplished and keep your record of this goal with the rest of goal tracking you do. Its a great motivator to be able to review the goal success and achievement from completed goals.

Enhance Your Goals

It may not need to be a specific new goal to set, but it certainly can be, and that is to keep your goal active by enhancing it. This might mean doing some measure again or changing the goal a bit to continue to build on what you’ve already accomplished. Perhaps this is simple to keep whatever you accomplished going and not simply loose it now that you reached that point. If this is a behavior goal (and it really should be) then making it a habit and keeping that accomplishment active is very important. Great goals should accomplish more than just a single event or measuring point and root some kind of change, its just important to ensure that change lives on after the goal as well.

Help Someone Else Achieve a Similar Goal

A fantastic way to keep the result of your goal alive is to help someone else accomplish a similar goal. This might be by encouraging them, being a resource to help teach them, give them advice or perhaps mentoring them in similar goal setting steps. All these things can be very rewarding and helpful for you not to forget your goal or changed behavior as well as being able to help someone else achieve their goals.
I believe that goals are only accomplished by truly driven individuals and practicing goals instead of bragging about them is a lot more valuable and less egocentric. Modesty is important if you want to influence others and convince them of how you feel or what you could help with for similar accomplishments. Tell your story of your goals, but make sure it includes the struggle and story of how you felt while working on them. Your doubts, your beliefs that backed them and even the hard work to achieve it. If you had to extend the goal or change it to make it easier, share that with people you tell, its the best way for them to empathize with the goal setting process and realize its not simple. Its hard work, worthwhile if you believe in it and it can definitely make a difference in your life.

Learn From This Goal

Its wise to review the process you used to complete this goal and consider all the areas that really helped or hindered you to keep making progress. Did you have to adjust your goal often? Why? Take a critical look at where things went well and need to be improved as part of your goal setting process. This is just a starting point, but you do need to explore your process to ensure you have success completing others goals and more in the future. Have you learned anything from your goal that is a new belief you never had? How can that be used to feed progress with your other goals? Make some notes for each goal you complete and review them to continue to improve your process.

Next Step after Completing a Goal

So, now that your goal is off your list you’ve got a couple options. Focus more on your other goals to achieve them as well or look at setting a new goal in that category. Go though the process of identifying goals again and tackle the next area you have a strong belief and desire to change behavior. Add some initial tasks for that goal and ensure you continue to work on others at the same time.

So, I hope you can seriously put some effort into your own goals and that you can make good use of this series. I hope that this is helpful to you as I know this process has been very helpful to me. Please, feel free to ask any questions or comments, I would love to continue to help you accomplish your goals!

That’s All!

Goal Setting Series

Part 1: Goal Setting – Introduction
Part 2: Goal Setting – Setting and Identifying
Part 3: Goal Setting – Tracking and Monitoring
Part 4: Goal Setting – Completing and Close

Posted by Mike King under Success | 1 Comment »

Tracking goals is an ongoing process, not a one time thing. This is the time when you are actively working on your goals and it is generally over some long period of time. During that time, its important that goals are not just forgotten. They need to be looked at on a regular basis. The more you think about your goals, the more you enhance the related beliefs and the more attention you will put to achieving these goals. I have some recommendations here for working towards your goals as well for tracking and monitoring them.

Working On Your Goals

The next important thing to do for working on your goals is pick the absolute simplest thing you can and make it the next thing you can work on. It should be something that you can do immediately (today or tomorrow). It might be as simple as looking up a contact name or finding some article or reference material, but that in itself is progress and a step towards your goal. Come up with a list of these simple things that will lead to progress towards your goal and write as many of them as you can think of. Making a habit of doing simple tasks towards your goal is very important and a great way to ensure that your focus will last without feeling overwhelmed by the work and that you have an impossible goal.

Make sure you keep tasks simple so you don’t get bogged down by any one long task and break them into pieces if you need to so you can always work on some small part. Keep a running list. Update it frequently so you don’t run out of things to work on. As mentioned above, you should focus on your goals on a regular basis and spend that time planning, reviewing and working on the tasks to help towards your achievement.

Some people find it helpful to use a goal buddy that they can share their plan and tasks list and hold them accountable to so that they are responsible to get things down not only for themselves, but also for the other person since they will be expecting it. Try this out to see if it works for you. Sometimes even just telling someone else and reporting to them on how its going is enough to keep you working with extra inspiration. A mentor here is perfect for helping to track and monitor your goals.

This may be daily, weekly or perhaps only monthly. The preference highly depends on each person and on the goals themselves. I recommend weekly, no matter what the goals are, since most people can remember tasks and items from about a week, but not much more.

Progress is Success!

Progress. The one and only thing that really matters for goal achievement. Continuous, steady progress will lead to accomplished goals. You will never get there without progress. This is why the small tasks work so well since you can easily remind yourself when you review your goals of the success and progress you are already having towards your goal if you are taking it on in small pieces.

Taking a simple action everyday or every week is a great way to have success in your whole goal setting process and it will definitely continue to inspire you to keep going strong with it. Keep that list of items going and keep them small enough that every time you review your goals, you have at least one thing to check off as being done.

Is Changing a Goal Cheating?

Next, its important to carefully consider your goal progress and be honest with where you are at. Its even a good idea to change your goals when you are falling behind. Its no use to beat yourself up for falling offtrack or getting behind on things, simply change your goal, reset, and starting making progress again. This is where most people fail who do set goals, they seem unwilling to change their goals, get farther and farther behind and eventually just give up. Don’t do that, just change your goal.

Adjusting a goal might mean changing the timebase of it, changing the goal itself to make it easier for you or even eliminating a goal altogether. Perhaps, just the way you measure a goal needs to be refined so you can tell when you’ve really accomplished it. Maybe your ideas and priorities have changed. After all, people’s minds and circumstances change all the time and therefore, so should their goals. If you’ve changed your beliefs about a goal, adjust it and make it real again. Remove some goals or add new ones. Its perfectly valid to adjust your goals constantly and actually, it will drastically help you to focus on the right goals that really do mean something, because those topics don’t just fade away; irrelevant and temporary ones definitely do. Is it cheating? No way, its part a proper goal setting process.

So, keep reviewing goals regularly, recognize progress towards your goal and feel free to change things to make them more appropriate.

Goal Setting Series

Part 1: Goal Setting – Introduction
Part 2: Goal Setting – Setting and Identifying
Part 3: Goal Setting – Tracking and Monitoring
Part 4: Goal Setting – Completing and Close

Posted by Mike King under Success | 3 Comments »

Setting goals isn’t easy. Actually, settings great goals isn’t easy. And that is what you want, great goals. Great goals are goals you really desire, have some passion for and will be happy making progress to meet them. If a goal is more about just the end result and you are afraid of what it takes to get their, its not going to be a great goal and its likely not going to work either. So, its best to look at setting great goals. And this article is about a way to actually go about doing this. I use it and it truly works.

Background to Identify Goals

Everyone makes decisions every day in life and everyday those decisions are based on the pain and pleasure that you believe that choice will lead to. That is exactly what leads to your decisions and its helps to really recognize this and to use it to your advantage in goal setting. The process outlined here is based on using those beliefs and really understanding the impact of them in the sense of pain and pleasure to you which will help to better identify the great goals for you!

Step 1: Brainstorm a Categorized Idea List

You first need to have some ideas and areas to explore your goals. Its great to simply do a brain dump here and write down everything that comes to mind. It helps to keep things categorized, and I use these categories for goal setting:

• Spiritual
• Personal
• Financial
• Career
• Stuff

Spend just a few minutes in each category writing down all the ideas you have as goals in those areas. If you don’t have many, that is fine, just write down everything, its common to have lots in one or two categories and not much in others.

Step 2: Note the Pleasure and Pain Related to Each Goal

What is the pleasure you will experience in achieving your goal, what will it feel like, and how is that feeling going to help you or others? What kind of pleasures will you experience while working to obtain your goal? Note all these in point form under a pleasure heading for each of your goal ideas. This will take some time especially if you have a lot of ideas down. Make sure to think about the pleasure you will experience in getting it, having it and holding on to whatever that goal idea is. Think of how it will affect others in a pleasurable way.

Next, do the same thing but thinking of all the pain that will exist getting, having and holding onto the achievement of each goal idea. Write down the pain caused by the work involved, the risks if they will be painful, the pain you might experience to/from others in achieving your goal.

Step 3: What Belief Backs Each Goal

Use the Pain and Pleasures in a positive way. You can do this by turning a current pain into something pleasurable by stating that the goal will help you to avoid certain pain. For example, this can work well in health and dieting goals since there is SO much pain to get to the goal. Turning this around in a more positive way, lists all the pains that can be avoided like health problems, self doubt and low esteem, feeling better by achieving the goal. Not only that, but if you don’t achieve the goal, then there will be even more pain caused by further health problems, feeling bad about yourself and still not being able to control your health. These can be very powerful driving forces for goals and you should use as many of them as you can.

A goal is about a target or end, not a description of how to get there. Which means that you really need a belief as the basis to build a strong and compelling to do whatever it takes to get to the goal, the target. You need to truly convince yourself why that goal is important to you and have the believe to build on it. A belief in something won’t shatter when one step fails, you don’t stop because of little or slow progress and you won’t easily change your mind from outside influence. That’s the reason why every goal should have some deeper beliefs feeding them. Maybe these are moral beliefs or simply beliefs about happiness. Perhaps they are beliefs about relationships or how others will see you, whatever they are, a belief is powerful and can really drive goals, much more than simply thinking that you want something. Or wishing for something or even being hopeful without a real reason. Those types of goals don’t last when things get tough and difficult to achieve.

Record the beliefs you have that reinforce each goal. You may also have beliefs that hold you back from achieving your goals. Turn these around into positives and set your mind on the beliefs you will have when you reach your target.

Step 4: Rate Your Goals

Put a number from 0-10 beside each of the goals to indicate which ones you want the most, 10 being the highest. Next, make another column and put a number from 0-10 to indicate how easy the goals are for you to achieve them. 10 being the easiest. And finally, rate each one again with a 0-10 on how strong your beliefs are that backs each of the goals, 10 being the highest.

Add up the numbers from each goal which is a score from 0-30. This is an easy way to get on the fast track to picking the great goals, which are the ones you desire most, have true beliefs in and are the easiest to achieve). Pick the top 2-3 goals (highest numbers after adding them up) and make these your focus or primary goals. Put the next 5 goals or so on your list as well which will be your secondary goals. Its much easier to only have one or two goals to focus on so keeping the priority ones you main focus will help achieve them faster. Often some of your goals will relate which is great, since you might be able to work on multiple goals at a time.

So, these are your goal topics. Next is to clarify these goals and finishing settings them.

Step 5: Clarify Your Goals

Clarifying your goals simply involves writing them in a way to make them useful. The method I recommend for this is simple and called MT goals, which stands for measurable and time based goals. Measurable means you must have something you can measure your progress and completion by. Without this measure, a goal is vague and not really useful at all. Measurable is something with a number or a simple yes or no answer. This is critical since most people’s goals fail because they don’t have a simple way to measure completion and progress. Make sure your goal has a way to check for completion. For example, here is one of my goals from a previous year:

Have a reading speed of at least 500 wpm by July 1, 2007.

Its simple and easy to measure. There are software tools, online websites or you can simply count words and test your own speed. The other point in the example goal you can see is the time based part. It states when the goal will be accomplished by a specific time. This is crucial. Without a time, you have no urgency and nothing to push yourself for. State a specific date, not some implied time, or relative time, just pick a single day and decide on that day to complete your goal by.

The simpler your goals are the better. They don’t need to be elaborate, long or complex in any way. You know what they are and you already have the ones with meaning to you and in categories you care about. Try to avoid using terms like improve, increase, develop, reduce, help, change unless you have a specific number attached that you can measure. You can usually just replace those words anyway by stating the target you want, not a relative change.

Goal Setting Series

Part 1: Goal Setting – Introduction
Part 2: Goal Setting – Setting and Identifying
Part 3: Goal Setting – Tracking and Monitoring
Part 4: Goal Setting – Completing and Close

Posted by Mike King under Success | 6 Comments »

OK, I wrote recently about not setting any new year’s resolutions and that was really because resolutions are generally missed, forgotten, ignored and never adjusted. They are not written, planned or even thought about that clearly. They are VERY different from goals. So, I’m going to be exploring goals and goal setting, tracking and following goals for the next several articles and I wanted to just introduce a bit about goals and what a difference they can make in one’s life.

Setting and achieving goals is a process, it is not a single event. I think this is the biggest mistake that people make with goals. They set them, leave them and eventually realize when its way to late, that they didn’t achieve them and voila, they no longer believe that goals work. That is simply not true. Goals do work, but to make them work, you also have to work your goals. There is a process that is needed to attend to them, track them, adjust them and even to identify them in the first place. They don’t just happen!

What are Goals Really Good For?

Plain and simply, goals are the one fundamental key to success and achievement. They are the key to accomplishment in every aspect of life. Living without having and utilizing goals means living in the wake of reaction and circumstance. Its living just to live instead of choosing how to live and why to live. Goals allow a person to focus their energy and life for purposes and passions. They help to add value to a person’s life by keeping them on track with what means most to them and they help a person to better understand themselves and what is important to them. Goals are a way to live with meaning and obsession for what brings the most joy and satisfaction to a person. They are something to express passion for, to motivate you and others who see your determinism and they simply bring to your life more of what you want.

Different aspects of Goals

So, the point these articles is that I’m going to reviews goals in a few separate sections. Its a big enough topic its easier to take in pieces and helpful if you are already experienced with goal setting but need some helpful tips in just one area. Goal setting really is important enough (and there are many blogs and series out there to show this) that it can be the sole focus for an entire site or longer series as well. I hope to cover a few specific things I’ve learned from using goals through my life and I want to present it in a short and actionable way so it is easy to help others enhance their experiences with goals as well. So, I’ve broken down a few separate articles into the following sections:

• Setting and Identifying goals
• Tracking and Monitoring goals
• Completing and Closing goals

I believe goals should be focused on achieving life lasting skills, relationships and changed behaviors or habits, not simply temporary or material things. The reason I believe this is because temporary and material things don’t really bring a true lasting satisfaction to anyone, so achieving them doesn’t build on the value of goals nearly as much as goal accomplishment in those other areas. A goal that is remembered and lasts forever will be much higher valued and will re-enforce the value of goal setting in the first place, even more. So, through these goal setting articles, keep focused on behavior impact of your goals, things you want with a lasting impact, not just some new job, toy, or even some dollar figure. What will last for years to come? What will you be most proud of on your death bed? What will help you leave a legacy to others when you pass on? Those are the types of content for great goals and accomplishing them is truly something to be proud of.

Goal Setting Series

Part 1: Goal Setting – Introduction
Part 2: Goal Setting – Setting and Identifying
Part 3: Goal Setting – Tracking and Monitoring
Part 4: Goal Setting – Completing and Close

Posted by Mike King under Success | 7 Comments »