School is out for summer, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t work to be done. I would like to revisit one of the simplest, yet most powerful tools for progressing in your career and life: Setting Goals.
That’s right, we all know about goal setting, realize the importance that setting goals can bring to measuring and assessing success and progress and yet many of us are not consistently setting and measuring our progress towards goals. I am guilty of this as well.
What are your goals / objectives for the day, week, month and year? Write them down, somewhere. Anywhere. Make that place the simplest place to access you can think of to achieve consistency in visiting your goals.
Once your goals are set, evaluate and assess your performance. Did you achieve your goal for the day, week or month? You can only know if you assess your progress. This means a short day end check and weekly and monthly checks….. it only takes a few minutes. Designate a consistent time slot for your reviews, this will help build the habit of reviewing.
If you don’t set a standard of performance or measure of performance, you will find yourself producing and achieving less…. you can’t hold yourself responsible for under performing if you aren’t aware that you aren’t where you should be! Many times we think we are performing at a higher level than we really are.
Most importantly, don’t be too hard on yourself if you are not progressing as fast as you would like. This is why it is important that your goals are realistic. The real goal here is to achieve an overall consistency in evaluating your progress…. not pushing yourself into depression because you didn’t nail your target goals. Not achieiving set goals is merely an opportunity to learn and evaluate so that you do achieve those goals in the future.
When you are done, click here.
