At the end of the day, life is for living; and living is about health and happiness, so remember the to-do list, but don’t forget the to-be list.
Richard Branson
As we start another quarter, it’s always valuable to assess your goals, and how you, your leaders and your teams set them.
These four powerful goal setting tips below can really help engage or re-engage, influence and re-focus yourself and / or your team.
How compelling are the goals? I mean, really compelling? Whatever context they are, (ie organisational or divisional goals, KPI’s, personal development goals,) they need to inspire motivation, not eye-rolling. By compelling, I mean you need to be able to visualise them – (can you genuinely see how they can be achieved, and see yourself succeeding?) feel them – (can you feel the benefits of achieving the goal and is an element of emotion involved?) If they’re just set to tune into your critical, logical sense, then they’re in danger of becoming another item on the ‘to do’ list. Spend the extra few minutes on this – it can make the world of difference. Ask yourself or your team member, what does this goal really look, feel, sound like to you? Get them to close their eyes and see, feel and hear it. Ask them why do they believe that they can achieve it? This will all help highlight any doubt or any part of the goal that needs to be tweaked in order to create the necessary impact behind it.
How creative are you? Do you put the goals in the future? There are specific techniques you can do to actively place them in your imagination, or time line. Have you triggered your RAS with these goals? Your RAS is your Reticular Activating System – it’s the reason why you bump into someone you know in a packed shopping centre or sports stadium, or why once you’ve decided to buy that particular car or pram, you see a million of them on the streets. Once you put a goal in your future, your brain will start searching for opportunities that help you get closer to achieving the goal.
How much focus do you put on the end result versus the process and progress. Dr Jason Fox speaks about how a sense of progress is the ultimate essential motivator – how do you track and publicise progress in an inspirational way?
And finally, are you guarding against you and your team from being overly consumed with your goals and to do lists? As Richard Branson wrote in his article on getting things done – “don’t forget the to-be list.”