Goals

Everywhere we go people are talking about goals for ourselves and for our business. We should make a goals list, and we must have periodic accounting as to whether we are reaching our goals or not. We must rank our goals, and we must constantly update our goals. However, our goals must not get in the way of us operating our business, but should support us being successful in our business.

Goals should be two-fold. They should challenge us to stretch our abilities and our talents. They also should be attainable so that reaching them reinforces our own sense of achievement. Goals that do not challenge us do not allow us to grow and develop our talents or our knowledge. We all must learn new techniques and grow as people and as business owners, managers, or employees, and as people.

Goals that are not attainable may become discouraging. We must have a sense of accomplishment and celebrate reaching the goals that are the building blocks of our business success. To reach a long term goal may require many intermediate goals being reached. These allow us to see the end results as attainable. Being able to reach the intermediate goals allows us to reach the ultimate ones.

Of course there are some goals that may be on everyone’s list. Maybe we began our business journey or employment to support our lifestyle; maybe it was a sense of self-satisfying achievement. Perhaps it was a dream of creating something to benefit mankind; it could have been a challenge from family, friends, or someone else. Whatever the reason, we should have goals to measure that success.

We should be happy and content in our business life; we should also be having fun. Anyone who knows me has heard me say that if you are not having fun, do something else. If our day is filled with despair and sadness, tension or tears, we have a problem. We should have at least one laugh a day, many more if possible. Every day put some silly into our lives, and then put it into someone else’s day.

We should aim to make our customers happy and glad that they entered into a relationship with us. We should have the goal of turning customers into clients, those people who will be repeat customers, often on an automatic renewing basis. We should support our networking partners even if they are not our customers. We should offer referrals to our partners which actually help them, not leads which mean nothing.

We must all have goals for our business and for our lives. These goals should challenge us and should be attainable so they we have a sense of achievement that gives us confidence. They should push us to learn, think outside of our comfort zone, and provide us new ways to grow our business. They should benefit us as well as our customers, family, friends, and our networking partners.

What are your goals for your business and for your life? Have you updated them recently or have you ever looked at them since you first wrote them down? You did write them down, didn’t you, because goals that are not written down are just wishes in the wind? If you need assistance in goal making, perhaps your networking partners could help you define them by sharing theirs with you. Please leave me your comments here, or email me at Jim@SOC4Now.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.