You can goal your own way
Rituals to enhance goal achievement
Out with the old and in with the new! In many cultures that is what the beginning of a new year symbolises. It is a time for completion, celebration and new beginnings.
In many cultures rituals can inspire, support and symbolise change. Perhaps you follow goal-setting rituals such as writing goals in a goal book or journal, visualisation, sharing and discussing your goals and dreams with others and reciting of affirmations or mantras. Here are some other rituals you can use to enrich and transform your goal achievement activities.
Before you preview your goals for 2002, make the time to take a backward glance and review your achievements and outcomes for 2001. You can glean valuable information from your professional and personal history.
- Identify the outcomes you achieved and how you achieved them.
- Review the ten most significant outcomes that you achieved in 2001 i.e. contribution to the business and colleagues, learning a new skill, creating more work / life balance.
- Identify whether you wrote down your goals and reviewed them weekly and if sharing them with the team enhanced the focus to achieve them.
- Acknowledge your achievements and celebrate.
Now you have reviewed the year before:
- You have reference points for your goal achievements and success.
- You can boost your confidence for the year ahead and set and achieve new goals with the belief that you can achieve them.
- Success does leave clues so pick up the clues from last year and apply your success strategies to your 2002 goals.
Think of your brain as your neck-top computer and your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes as the software. Are your thoughts and beliefs about yourself, your profession or your business supporting your ability to grow, change and create an attitude in which your goals can flourish?
You can represent your outcomes in positive language and use the following as your goal achievement mantra: I set and achieve my goals easily. Remember Plato’s axiom: We become what we contemplate.
You’ve decided what you want. Now it’s time to get very specific and envisage your goal or goals. How do you represent it or them? Make your goals attractive and compelling so that you will want to move towards them.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What goal/s do I want to achieve? Be specific and make the outcome measurable, realistic and time specific. If your outcome is to increase new business be specific and identify new business i.e. how many new clients, in what time frame and extra revenue to the business.
- Who will be involved with me when I achieve the outcome?
- When would I like to have this outcome? When you write your goals down or visualise them, decide the date you would like to have it by and include the on or before option when you write or visualise your goal, i.e. On or before 31st March 2002 I have increased my monthly budget by $10K. This can help to accelerate the achievement of your outcomes.
- Where will I be when I achieve the outcome and in which environment?
- How is realising this goal going to improve my life and why is it important for me to achieve this goal?
- What will be different in my life when I have achieved this outcome?
Identify the resources that you have now - your colleagues, peers, mentors, family, time, technology, experience, skills, knowledge and your attitude. Resources can be tangible or intangible.
Imagine taking a walk into the future. It is the 1st January 2003 and you are looking back over the year 2002 and all that you achieved. Ask yourself:
- How did I get here?
- What and who did it take to get me to this outcome?
- Did I need to learn any new skills or acquire technology to enhance my performance or productivity?
Asking these questions can help you to identify any of the resources that you may need to achieve your outcomes.
You can involve others in developing and achieving your goals. There maybe opportunities for those around you to support you in achieving your outcomes.
- Arrange time at the beginning of the year to get together with your colleagues, peers, friends and family and share your dreams for the coming year with them.
- Have your business or team goal-getting meeting and include everyone in the vision for the year.
- Identify the specific resources required to achieving the business goals and include strategies to support the individual, team and business outcomes.
An Olympic athlete in training and at the start of a competition is focusing on winning. Like the athlete you can:
- Focus on your intention.
- Create a trigger that you can use to enhance your state for being focused. I have a special ring I wear when I am writing because it symbolizes creativity and focus.
It is important to keep up all activity that will move you in the direction of achieving your goals.
- After you have written your goals, visualise and read them again on a regular basis.
- When you achieve them tick them off and celebrate and reward your outcomes.
- Keeping track of your progress can boost confidence and provide you with evidence of how you are achieving goals in specific areas and in what time frames.
Creating and maintaining work and lifestyle balance has almost become the Holy Grail. With many striving and searching for more of it, balance is close to becoming an industry of it’s own.
If you can master the challenges of achieving in business, keeping up with family and social commitments and staying healthy in the process, you can enhance your ability to achieve your goals.
And remember it’s not the hours that you work it is the work that you put in to the hours!
You can factor in fun while you work and play towards achieving your goals.
Create a fun trigger for the task and the process becomes more enjoyable. The fun factor can be a great motivator to fast track you on the path to goal achievement.