Success Habit: Goals

Being an entrepreneur is an emotional roller coaster.                 

One minute you feel excited, and the next defeated.  Full of hope and then anxiety.  You get the idea. 

For me, being an entrepreneur has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. When I started this journey, I thought it would be easy because I knew how to work hard.  Little did I know that hard work isn’t the most critical part of being an entrepreneur 

This journey would be both traumatic and rewarding and would push me in ways I never anticipated.  

I’m still being pushed, but I have been at it long enough to have found some rhythm.  

Over the next few weeks, I’ll share some of my success habits.   Let’s start with goals.

 

You need to know where you are going.

I am always shocked at how many entrepreneurs don’t set goals and succeed by accident. 

However, eventually, the lack of goal-setting catches up.  

As entrepreneurs, especially at the beginning, we say yes to everything.  We add services; we say yes to opportunities, requests, and offers.   Eventually, this wears us down. 

This is where a good plan can help.  

With a good plan, you determine where you want to go, how you will get there, what you need, and when.  Basically, a plan creates direction and focus. 

You know your priorities, so you can say yes to the right things and no to the things that do not help you meet your goals.  

I recommend creating a parking lot for anything that interests you but does not fit that quarter’s priorities.  You can revisit those items at the next quarterly planning session and determine if they are now priorities.  

Write it down

If you know what your goals are, do you have them written down? 

Did you know that you are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if they are written down?                                                                                                                               

In the quarterly planning workshops, I explain the best way to write out your goals.  I expand on the standard SMART acronym to create goals that work with both your conscious and unconscious mind.  

I also suggest some questions for you to answer regarding your goals that help you create clarity, focus, and motivation for the goals.  

I’m a busy entrepreneur, and writing down my goals gets the ideas out of my head and onto paper.  Paper that I then print and post on my desk.  When I can see my goals daily, I keep my focus on my priorities and prevent shiny objects from distracting me. 

90-day cycles 

Finally, I find planning in 90-day cycles the most effective way to plan.  

Reviewing your plans each quarter ensures that you keep your goals top of mind. 

By the time we are done 90-days, we are likely slightly off course, and an adjustment is necessary.   A 90-day planning cycle allows you to do course corrections.   It enables you to re-prioritize, re-plan or adjust as needed.  

Every 90-days, you celebrate what you accomplished, what worked and what didn’t, and adjust for these learnings.   You also ensure that your focus is correct and then adjust/update your goals accordingly.  

The 90-day planning cycle is a game changer.  

If you don’t have a good planning process, check out the Acuity Path Planning workshop, where I explain everything in detail.  

Do you do 90-day planning?  I’d love to know.  

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisiable into the visiable.

Tony Robbins

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