Goal Setting – the key to success?

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

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

So what is goal setting?

A quick Google search and the business world will quickly tell 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 me because it sets too many limitations. We dream big as children, and nothing is impossible. So why as adults do we believe that “Realistic and Achievable” are the limits of our capabilities?  

The corporate world should simply say what it means, “In corporations we like you to set goals, but don’t be too lofty, we don’t want you to get ideas above your station”. 

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

“A committed decision to reach a predetermined specific goal, combined with a burning desire, followed by immediate, massive action repeated consistently for as long as it takes until your goal is reached“.

The author of this quote is one 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, but let’s look again at the key phrases used in this definition;

• Committed Decision
• Specific Goal
• Burning Desire
• Immediate MASSIVE Action
• Repeated Consistently
• For as long as it takes

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

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

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

Why is goal setting so effective?

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

What is the difference between success and failure? 

A Committed Decision

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

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

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

A Specific Goal

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

• Career
• Family
• Adventure
• Contribution

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

Next thing is to RANK YOUR GOALS in order of importance to you on a scale of 1 to 10. In the example from 2008 I wrote that an MBA was less important to me than the respect of the industry and my customers, I still don’t have an MBA because it is no longer relevant, but respect always is.

Burning Desire

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 and immediately my motivation to do anything other than scream is lost. However, your new goal MUST be worth the effort, this MUST become a magnificent obsession and if your enthusiasm to achieve it needs to be mustered then review its importance. Which would you rather have, infectious enthusiasm or a polite shrug?

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

Take IMMEDIATE and MASSIVE ACTION

I love this bit, Immediate and Massive action, not tomorrow but NOW. Medical Aesthetics is packed full of business owner operators and its great. The simple fact that you are reading this means that the streak of entrepreneurship runs deep in you and you know how to get things done. But sometimes the burst of enthusiasm does wane and we need a little kick. I just think “I must move this rock now and it must move a long way”; often this is in the “Think and Plan” stage of our planning process and gets us a good head start.

Repeated Consistently

Now, this is the real challenge isn’t? Going to the Gym, dieting, learning a language or instrument this is the phase of goal setting that you WILL fall down on, because we are creatures of habit, and our default habits is to make excuses to not do things. If you’ve been not doing things for most of your life it’s going to be a tough habit to break!  Apparently it takes 30 days for habit forming activities to embed themselves and probably five minutes to break them, and often 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 goals I wrote in Crystal Palace, and as Tarks will tell you, climbing Everest isn’t something you can just decide to do on a Tuesday afternoon and squeeze in after the gym, (well you can, you’ll just die a slow painful death, which is kind of the ultimate failure).

So, who is the genius who set your humble RCS on his way to 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 wrote his goals for the year on index cards. He looked at it every day, and made a conscious 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, be sure you want it and enjoy the ride.

If Arnold can do it, why can’t you?

I’ll be back.

If you liked this blog, please share!