It’s great to dream big – ‘Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars’ etc. However, in business terms, if you’re shooting for the moon then you also need to take into account each of the small, individual stages that will get you up into the atmosphere in the first place. Achieving business goals is all about identify realistic options that will move you forward at the right pace without holding your ambition back.
Limit your focus
Start with a single goal and move on from there. If you set multiple goals that are only very tenuously linked you’re highly likely to find yourself spread so thin that it’s difficult to achieve any of them. Focus on what you’re good at – what do you know can be achieved with the skills, experience, market share or products that you already have?
Make logical leaps
Your business goals should effectively work as a sequence of logical leaps that take you from where you are now to where you’re hoping to go. Look at the skills, experience or insights that you already have and how these can be carried into what you want to do next. If there’s no logical leap between one and the other then are there other stages that need to happen in between?
Consistency is key
Results in any context are achieved by taking consistent steps towards them. So, expect achieving your goal to involve consistently moving in one direction, rather than taking one big giant leap.
Keep your goals small
Big, bold goals sound great on paper. However, if they’re not realistic then the sense of failure when they aren’t achieved could hold you back from your true potential. It’s far better to set multiple smaller goals and tick them all off – enjoying a sense of achievement and satisfaction with each one – than to have a single big goal that takes a superhuman effort even to get half way towards.
Break down your goals
If you’re struggling to set small goals then take that big goal you’re dreaming about and break it down into a series of steps. It might be useful to look at the big goal as a novel and all the smaller objectives that it will take to achieve it as the chapters. Only by working through each of the chapters will you get to the end of the book.
Surround yourself with cheerleaders
It’s no easy feat to identify the right goals and then stick to pursuing them, which is why in business networks are so important. The people in your business networks will have skills, advice and experience that could be invaluable in helping you to determine whether the goals you’re setting are realistic and achievable. They could also provide a key cheering squad for when times get tough.
To find out more about how to set business goals that will drive growth and help you to successfully pursue your ambitions, get in touch today.
