Goal Setting – the key to success?

At RCS Towers Friday is a sacred day, as it is thebeginning of the week. Yep, you heard me; we start our working week with twodays off so hands up if you want to work for RCS. On this most sacred of dayswe begin with a practise that has served me well for the last Ten years and Ican say will transform your life and business if used well. Indeed cleverpeople, you have guessed – Goal setting.

We use goal setting routinely to help in all of ourplanning phases, as goals are simply objectives; things I will achieve for thecustomer, for myself, for my colleagues and for my family.

So what is goal setting?

A quick Google search and the business world will quicklytell you that the best useable method for goal setting is SMART;

·        Specific

·        Measureable

·        Achievable

·        Realistic

·        Timebound

This is a worthy method, but it doesn’t work for mebecause it sets too many limitations. We dream big as children, and nothing isimpossible. So why as adults do we believe that “Realistic and Achievable” arethe limits of our capabilities?  Thecorporate world should simply say what it means, “In corporations we like youto set goals, but don’t be too lofty, we don’t want you to get ideas above yourstation”.

Call me an eternal optimist and unrealistic dreamer, butI saw through this and very soon afterwards discovered the definition of goalsetting still used by us at RCS;

“A committeddecision to reach a predeterminedspecific goal, combined with a burningdesire, followed by immediate,massive action repeated consistently for as long as it takes until your goal is reached“.

The author of this quote isone of the most successful people in his generation, an Athlete, an Actor, a Businessman,a Politician, and Multi-Millionaire. I’ll tell you who it is at the end, butlet’s look again at the key phrases used in this definition;

·        Committed Decision

·        Specific Goal

·        Burning Desire

·        Immediate MASSIVEAction

·        RepeatedConsistently

·        For as long asit takes

They are powerful words when you think about it, andactually quite obvious as every day we decide to do something, we set anobjective, we act and repeat until it is done.

So if this is the case, why do we fail? Why do weprocrastinate? Why do some people achieve great success and others do not? Whyare there so many self-help books?

All men are NOT created equal, and the ability to set, andachieve goals is what separates us.

Why isgoal setting so effective?

Goal setting focuses the subconscious mind on the task inhand and enables us to apply our considerable resourcefulness to achieving it.The old adage of winners never quit and quitters never win underpins ourphilosophy of success.

Whatis the difference between success and failure?

A Committed Decision

Do you CHOOSEto fail because you DECIDE TO STOPtrying to succeed? I believe this is the case, it took me four years to get RCSConsulting off the ground, and it began on this scrap of paper in January 2008after an impromtu goal setting session in a car park in Crystal Palace.

I had had enough of the life of a Sales Representativeand was listening to an audiobook of “Tony Robbins – Awaken the Giant Within”;I remember driving Mrs RCS crazy with my constant regurgitation of “a decisionis not a decision unless you act”, which she felt was pretty obvious and otherhighly clichéd soundbites.

But that’s the real point isn’t it? It doesn’t matter ifit is a cliché or not, or you know you should, unless you COMMIT to the decision and act they’re still only words. Maybehandwriting lessons would have helped, but cut a guy some slack - I was writingon the steering wheel. It wasn’t moving.

ASpecific Goal

So let’s assume that you have made a Committed Decisionto your first specific goal, which should actually be to goal set, grab a nicepaper and pen, and write down the following headings;

·        Career

·        Family

·        Adventure

·        Contribution

Now write down 10SPECIFIC GOALS under each heading, and let your mind soar, in this life weare constrained only by ourselves so really go for it. I write down Orbit theEarth and Climb Everest under adventure every goal setting day.

Next thing is to RANKYOUR GOALS in order of importance to you on a scale of 1 to 10. In theexample from 2008 I wrote that an MBA was less important to me than the respectof the industry and my customers, I still don’t have an MBA because it is nolonger relevant, but respect always is.

BurningDesire

Everyone has to do things that bore the pants off them,while I cast my mind back to the last instalment of the Twilight Series andimmediately my motivation to do anything other than scream is lost. However,your new goal MUST be worth the effort, this MUST become a magnificentobsession and if your enthusiasm to achieve it needs to be mustered then reviewits importance. Which would you rather have, infectious enthusiasm or a politeshrug?

What’s the point of working hard to learn how to dance ifyou hate dancing? You’ll quit and feel like you have failed, when all you didwas choose the wrong goal. I want to climb Everest, but I don’t have a burningdesire to do it – my friend Tarka L’Herpiniere did, and he has now summited 3times! In fact he should probably be writing this.

TakeIMMEDIATE and MASSIVE ACTION

I love this bit, Immediate and Massive action, nottomorrow but NOW. Medical Aesthetics is packed full of business owner operatorsand its great. The simple fact that you are reading this means that the streakof entrepreneurship runs deep in you and you know how to get things done. Butsometimes the burst of enthusiasm does wane and we need a little kick. I justthink “I must move this rock now and it must move a long way”; often this is inthe “Think and Plan” stage of our planning process and gets us a good headstart.

RepeatedConsistently

Now, this is the real challenge isn’t? Going to the Gym,dieting, learning a language or instrument this is the phase of goal settingthat you WILL fall down on, because we are creatures of habit, and our defaulthabits is to make excuses to not do things. If you’ve been not doing things formost of your life it’s going to be a tough habit to break!  Apparently it takes 30 days for habit formingactivities to embed themselves and probably five minutes to break them, andoften we take on too much in one go. Change your life and habits one at a time,and train yourself to succeed and achieve your goals.

Remember the final part - for as long as it takes. It took me four years to achieve the goalsI wrote in Crystal Palace, and as Tarks will tell you, climbing Everest isn’tsomething you can just decide to do on a Tuesday afternoon and squeeze in afterthe gym, (well you can, you’ll just die a slow painful death, which is kind of theultimate failure).

So, who is the genius who set your humble RCS on his wayto independence, and becomes the strange focus on a Friday morning?

Albert Einstein? Vince Lombardi? Richard Branson?

Nope.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, unbelievably.  

Arnie arrived in the USA from Austria and simply wrotehis goals for the year on index cards. He looked at it every day, and made aconscious effort to achieve them. By the time he was 30 he was a Millionaire,long before his Hollywood Movie days.

So take your time, focus on what you want to achieve, besure you want it and enjoy the ride.

If Arnold can do it, why can’t you?

I’ll be back.