This guest post is writted by Adam Jelic, founder of MiGoals
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As business owners, we tend to wear many hats, often simultaneously.
The obvious perks of being a business owner is that you get to choose when you work, how you work and the tasks you do each day. That being said, there is nobody other than yourself to keep the business moving forward and keep you accountable.
This is where the power of goal-setting comes in.
We’ve all set a goal at some point in our lives, whether the goal was meaningful to you and in line with your business and purpose? That’s a different story.
Setting a goal of course is the easy part. Continuously working each day towards achieving it amidst the 100 tasks you have to do as you strive to create a work-life balance is where it becomes difficult.
By creating positive habits and practicing some key techniques, you can break the cycle and set goals that are meaningful to you and your business, once and for all.
1. Identify what is important to your business
It’s a simple but profound truth, you can’t achieve your goals if you don’t know what they are. By sitting down and identifying the key areas of your business you want to work on, you can then start to set goals accordingly.
Whether it’s generating a certain amount of sales, getting your product featured in an important publication or getting traffic to your website, knowing what is important to your business is crucial to your businesses success.
2. Focus on the important tasks for the day
The secret to mastering your time is to systematically focus on importance and suppress urgency. At times, everything can feel important, when in fact, that’s not the case. Important tasks in your business are the ones that contribute to your purpose, business mission and goals. These are things like that new product you want to launch, getting that deal that will help boost sales and outsourcing certain areas of your business. The problem is that important tasks usually get trumped by urgent tasks. Fight the urge to respond to that email, phone call or task by reminding yourself with this quote from Warren Buffet; “You can’t let other people set your agenda in life”.
3. Break it down
Did you know that the average human has 50,000 thoughts a day? And somehow 80% of them tend to be negative. No wonder we’re stressed, overwhelmed and starting to lose touch with ourselves.
By mapping out and writing down your goals, you’re able to visually see what you’re working towards and can check up on them regularly and make necessary changes.
Here’s how to set goals:
Brainstorm: Everything related to your goal
What: Once you’ve brainstormed your goal, craft a positive, realistic and actionable statement
Why: When you can tap into why you want to achieve something, you’ll be way more motivated to actually make it happen
When: A goal without a deadline is just a dream, set an achievable deadline
How: This is the first step in crafting your action plan
Write a to-do list: Once you’ve figured out all the aspects of your goal, it’s time to break it down into actionable, logical steps
4. Make Progress
If you ask any personal development coach what the key to happiness and success is, they’ll respond with ‘progress’.
When we track the steps we take we can begin to notice how much we’re actually getting done which can be a powerful motivator. While material possessions may bring temporary moments of joy, knowing that you’re constantly developing your skills, growing and learning new things will help you achieve life-long fulfilment.
5. Be adaptable
Goal setting is a tool to help you navigate the direction of your business. Priorities and circumstances change as you make progress and that is okay. You just have to adapt to your new priorities and set goals accordingly.
6. Reflect, acknowledge and move
One way to stick to achieving your goals is to take time each month to R-A-M it.
Reflect:
Reflect often on how you are tracking with your goals; remember out of site out of mind. By taking time to reflect on your progress you begin to see what’s working and what isn’t allowing you to change and tweak things.
Acknowledge:
Acknowledge your wins take and time to celebrate the progress you have made, also don’t forget to pat yourself on the back. Accordingly take time to acknowledge the losses and lessons learnt. Being aware of your progress makes the journey towards your goal one you will never forget.
Move:
Once you have taken the time to reflect and acknowledge the progress made towards your goals its time to move on to the next step or next goal. Remember progress and personal growth is one of the key fundamentals to happiness.
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Mi Goals has just launched the Goal Digger Planner which will be available on Kickstarter until the 7th of October. The planner will guide you through the year, the way a life coach would. Back the Goal Digger Planner here.
About our guest writer :
Adam Jelic – founder of MiGoals
Adam Jelic is the founder of Melbourne based stationery brand MiGoals. MiGoals started in 2010 with the goal of empowering individuals to set and achieve their goals and also live inspired lives. Today Mi Goals products can be found across book and gift stores across Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Learn more here…