So, you have set your goals – great! But how do you go about achieving and measuring your goals?
The good news is that when you set your S.M.A.R.T. goals (which if you read last weeks blog, you will then have a yardstick against which you can measure your progress and success).
In order to achieve your goals, you need a plan. An action plan is a great way of doing this. An action plan is a set of tasks that you will undertake in order to achieve your goals. An action plan generally will work backwards from a deadline and break the goals down into a series of smaller tasks. Determine what tasks or actions need to be undertaken to achieve your goals and put these into a schedule. This can be in the form of a monthly, weekly or daily set of tasks of an overall plan.
Once you have put together an action plan you need to follow through with it. This seems pretty common sense, right? You would think so! But so many people skip this essential step and then wonder why they are not seeing results and achieving success. So, it is imperative that you complete your monthly/weekly/daily tasks within your schedule. Keep track of this and measure and evaluate how you are tracking in achieving your goal at regular intervals and be sure to tweak your action plan if you are not seeing progress.
TIP: Share your goals with an accountability buddy to keep you both on track
You will also need to think about the way you have been doing things while not achieving results. Now think about what you need to be doing differently to achieve these goals.
Back to our friend Clare from previous weeks – Clare was busy, working hard as a small business owner, unsure as to why she was not seeing any results in her business despite working so hard. We worked together and pin pointed that Clare had not set goals and as such, had no way to measure success. We worked on setting S.M.A.R.T. goals and putting together a plan to achieve these. However, this involved changing the way that Clare worked. After all – what she was doing was not seeing her achieve results and success. It is all too easy to continue to work in an ad-hoc manner, being snowed under with ‘things to do’ and doing all you can to get them done, but if it is not showing you success what is the point? Change is hard, but so important to consider if you are wanting to achieve goals.
Setting S.M.A.R.T goals, developing action plans and measuring and evaluating how you are tracking at regular intervals will guide you on the path to success!
Have you heard about the Thriving Women Program? Set to launch in February in Melbourne and Perth. Want to know more? Check out the video below..