In my post yesterday, I asked the question “How SMART are Your New Year’s Resolutions?“  We examined our goals to see if they were Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Now that your goals are SMART, you may be wondering what the secrets are for turning them into reality.  That’s what I want to share with you in today’s post.  We’ve transformed our wishes and resolutions into real goals that we can actually accomplish, but how do we do that?

How do these goals that we’ve written down become a driving force in our lives that takes us down the path one step at a time?

5 Ways to Make Your Goals Even SMARTer this Year

It’s taken me a long time to figure out that I can create the perfect goals on a sheet of paper but unless these goals become part of me they are almost as useless as having no goals at all.  Never forget that your goals are exactly that – YOUR goals.

It’s your future, your road, your life that is impacted by the failure or success of these goals.  Writing goals that look great on paper, but are put into a drawer to be thought of no more, is pointless.  Your goals must be a reflection of the true you.

#1 How Will I Feel When I Accomplish this Goal?

What is it that you hope to attain through this goal?  What is it that this goal will bring into your life?  How will you feel when you cross this goal off your list?

Take a few minutes, close your eyes, and imagine what accomplishing this goal will look like in your life.  Stephen R. Covey says that

To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination.  It means to know where your’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.

Being able to clearly picture your destination, and attaching how you will feel when you reach it, is key to making your goals become a driving force in your life.

#2 Who Will I Have to Work with to Accomplish this Goal?

I’ve found that no matter how personal a goal may be there will always be others involved in accomplishing it.  As an entrepreneur, we must think about all of the people that will be part of making our goals become a reality.

How will you have to work with your employees, suppliers, clients, competitors, advertisers, investors, and so forth?  List out the people that will affected by your goal and plan how you will need to work with them.

#3 What Do I Have to Do to Accomplish this Goal?

As you have probably surmised already, spending this much time developing your goals means that a goal is much more than a simple to do list.  A goal is a conglomeration of many to do lists ordered to accomplish a greater task.

Spell out what you need to do for each goal to make it become a reality.  For example, you’ve set a goal to increase sales $100,000 this year from new customers.  What do you need to do to accomplish this goal?

If your average sales from existing customers is $1,000 each then you will need to bring in 100 new customers to reach this goal.  This means you need to bring in 2 new customers per week.

You may further need to define prospect meetings, number of leads, etc. depending on the goal.  Make sure the road to achieving the goal is clearly mapped out with everything you will need to do.

#4 Who Do I Have to Be to Accomplish this Goal?

Gandhi said that we must be the change that we want to see in the world.  In many ways, this applies to accomplishing our goals.  If our goals are really going to become a driving force in our lives then they will change who we are.

We must become the type of entrepreneurs, the type of people, who do the things and think the way that someone who has accomplished our goals does.  This could be becoming an effective salesperson, an attentive listener, an inspiring leader, or a compassionate person.

If we were already what we needed to be to accomplish our goals then we wouldn’t need to set those goals.  Unless we are willing to become the person that acts and thinks like the person who accomplishes our goals, we won’t.

#5 With Whom Will I Share Accomplishing this Goal?

Whose life will be impacted by accomplishing your goal?  Just like it is difficult to accomplish any goal without others, it is impossible to accomplish your goals without affecting others.

How will you impact the lives of those around you with your goals?  Earlier I asked you to close your eyes and imagine how you will feel when you’ve accomplished this goal.  Do the same for those around you.

Make your goals bigger than just yourself.  Expand your vision and enhance the lives of others.  These types of goals are always more rewarding than you can imagine.

Related posts:

1. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)
2. How SMART are Your New Year’s Resolutions?
3. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (2 of 3)

If you’re like most entrepreneurs, chances are that the resolutions you’ve made for 2010 are eerily similar to the resolutions you made for 2009.  They’re probably the same resolutions you’ve been making for years.

There are certain natural milestones that seem to make us take pause and examine our small business successes and failures.  For example, when closing the books on one year, and opening the books for the next, it’s hard for an entrepreneur not to reflect on the year that was.

What were your resolutions for 2009?  How did you do?  How many were accomplished?  How SMART are your New Year’s resolutions this year?

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams

The resolutions made by so many entrepreneurs remind me of this signature phrase from Robin Leach’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.  Merriam-Webster’s dictionary says that to resolve means “to reach a firm decision about,” or “to declare or decide by a formal resolution and vote.”

Resolutions, wishes, and dreams are a great start; however, you can’t make your business successful by resolving, dreaming, or wishing it to be so.  All entrepreneurs possess these in abundance, but the successful entrepreneur translates these into goals – not just any goals though – they must be SMART goals.

What Makes Your Goals SMART?

I posted a three part series on goal setting by Zig Ziglar a few months ago that is a really great primer on the distinction between a goal and a wish.  If you haven’t checked out this series I’d like to encourage you to do so.

Once you have gone through Zig’s Six Step Formula for Goal Setting, the next step is to evaluate your goals using the SMART mnemonic.

Is Your Goal Specific?

You need to spell out your goals in as much detail as possible.  For instance, “I want to increase my sales this year” becomes “I want to increase my sales from existing clients by 25% over last year’s sales.”  The more specific and concrete you make the goal the better – e.g., dollar amount instead of percentage.

Can Your Goal Be Easily Measured?

If you can’t measure it then it isn’t really a goal.  You can’t measure “to increase customer satisfaction,” however, you can measure “to score over 90% on customer service surveys” or “reduce the number of returns by 20%.”  Without the ability to measure and track your goals there is no accountability.  If you take these two factors out of the equation then your goals have a slim chance of becoming a reality.

Is This Goal Attainable (or Achievable)?

There is probably nothing worse than chasing after windmills.  Make sure that the goal you set is actually something that you have a reasonable chance of attaining.  This doesn’t mean that your goals can’t be hard to reach – just not impossible.

Is Your Goal Relevant?

Make sure that your goal does what you are trying to accomplish.  Increasing your sales is great, but if your profit margin or overhead is out of whack then you are probably not going to achieve the larger bottom line you are after.  In fact, setting the wrong goals can often make your situation worse.

What is the Time Frame for Accomplishing the Goal?

Unless you set deadlines for your goals they are not much better than the traditional New Year’s resolution.  When setting goals we need to make sure that we have a completion date, but also that we have various milestones( or shorter-term goals) if the completion date is more than 3 to 6 months out.  It’s hard to work on a goal today that has a completion date five years away.

How Did Your Goals Do?

How did your goals fare?  Do you follow Zig’s Six Step Formula for Goal Setting?  It’s a great formula.  If so, how SMART are your goals for this year?

I know much of this sounds just like common sense, but you’d be surprised at just how uncommon it has become among entrepreneurs today.

Laying a good foundation is rarely complicated, but it is almost always time consuming.  Any good builder will tell you that taking short cuts here will never support whatever you build on top of it.  Build your business with a SMART foundation.

Related posts:

1. 5 Ways to Make Your Goals Even SMARTer this Year
2. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)
3. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (2 of 3)

Ever feel like when you are at work that you should be spending more time with your family, but when you are with your family you start thinking that you should really be out working for your family?

It’s that classic paradox between being too busy making a living to be able to spend the time enjoying that living.

Have you ever lifted up your head at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year and ask “How did I get here?”  Does it seem that you are always too busy?  Ever feel like there just isn’t enough time in the day?  Listen to what Zig has to say on this topic.

Zig Ziglar: Setting Goals (part 2 of 3)

The Featured Video this week is from one of my favorite motivational speakers – Zig Ziglar. It is an excerpt from his course on setting goals, and it is the last video in a three part series. The video series is a little dated, but don’t let that fool you – the advice Zig provides is timeless.

Selected Highlights from the Video

Listed below are some of the quotes and other information from the video that I found helpful. I hope you find them helpful too.

I Don’t Ever Have Time to do Anything!

You see the basic problem is that most people when they’re working on their job start thinking, “You know, I really ought to be spending time at home with my family”.  And then when they’re at home with their family they start thinking, “I really ought to be out there working for my family.”  – Zig Ziglar

You see the basic problem is not lack of time.  It’s lack of direction.  We all have the same amount of time whether we are a millionaire or a pauper. – Zig Ziglar

What Goals Can Do For You

• Goals chase the blues away.
• Goals create activity which creates excitement.

Zig points out that “Logic will not change an emotion, but action will.”  How many times have you thought your way out of a bad mood?  Isn’t it doing something that changes our frame of mind?

College Dream Experiment

In the experiment, they hooked students up to monitors where computers recorded their brain waves.  The students went to sleep, but when the computer recorded that they were in a dream state the students were awakened.

Then they were allowed to go back to sleep, but the same process was repeated throughout the night.  The students received a normal amount of sleep, but were not allowed to dream.  Here are the results:

• After Night #1 – Many students felt nervous and fidgety.
• After Night #2 – Students felt irratable, short, and cross.
• After Night #3 – Experiment aborted due to concerns for student’s mental health.

Twenty-four hours later, most students had returned to normal.  Within a week, all the students had returned to normal.

Conclusion: When you are asleep, you need your dreams.  And Zig adds…

“I’m here to tell you that when you’re wide awake you also need your dreams.  You nust have your goals.  You’ll never make it as a wandering generality.  You must become a meaningful specific.”

Are You a Processionary Caterpillar?

Processionary caterpillars received their name because they follow their leader in a procession.  Jean Henri Fabre wondered what would happen if he lined them up on the rim of a flower pot without any gaps between them.

The caterpillars kept moving in a progression around the rim of the flower pot for several days without stop.  He put pine needles (their favorite food) in the center of the flower pot, but the caterpillars kept marching around the rim of the flower pot.

Seven days later some of the caterpillars died of starvation, which broke the circle creating a leader that led them to the food.

They confused activity with accomplishment.  You’ve got some friends that are in this same shape.  They’re busy, busy, beeing all the time.  They’re going, going, going, going … and they’re here and they’re there or they’re somewhere else.  But they never really accomplish anything because they don’t have those specific, clearly identifiable objectives.  You’ve got to have those goals. – Zig Ziglar

Missed part of the series?  Find the prior videos here:

Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)

Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (2 of 3)

Related posts:

1. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (2 of 3)
2. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)
3. How SMART are Your New Year’s Resolutions?

Have you ever met someone who is always going to do something, but never seems to get started?

Perhaps you see that person in the mirror each morning?

Last week we learned that the first step in setting goals is to actually make the choice to sit down and write them out.

Have you made that choice yet?  Or, is this something that you always seem to be going to do?

Zig would tell you to get started or you might get “Cooked in the Squat.”  Listen as he explains what he means.

Zig Ziglar: Setting Goals (part 2 of 3)

The Featured Video this week is from one of my favorite motivational speakers – Zig Ziglar. It is an excerpt from his course on setting goals, and it is the second video in a three part series. The video series is a little dated, but don’t let that fool you – the advice Zig provides is timeless.

Selected Highlights from the Video

Listed below are some of the quotes and other information from the video that I found helpful. I hope you find them helpful too.

Getting Cooked in the Squat

“The people who wait for Aunt Matilda to move out, or John to get on the day shift, or the new models to come out, or the new mayor to come in, or for the new advertising campaign to get started … The people who wait on the new senator in Washington, or until inflation slows, or the rate of interest comes down, or the people who wait for changes to take place out there, before they do the changing in here, are flat gonna end up getting cooked in the squat.” – Zig Ziglar

Procrastination

Procrastination is a cancer that will eat at the dreams of the small business owner.  The danger in putting it off another day is that we are not guaranteed another day.

This is what the Bible tells us about putting things off until tomorrow:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. – James 4:13-14 (NIV)

Now is the time to start accomplishing your dreams.  Successful entrepreneurs do not wait around for things to change – they change things.

Zig finishes with part three of this series at

Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (3 of 3)

If you missed part one of this series you can find it at

Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)

Related posts:

1. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (1 of 3)
2. Zig Ziglar on Setting Goals (3 of 3)
3. How SMART are Your New Year’s Resolutions?