The power of goals

Last night I wrote a short post about goals over on my ActiveRain site.

In it I talked about one of my summer goals which was to get rid of the watch tan line on my left wrist.

It was a pretty easy goal to achieve.  I stopped wearing the watch and stayed out in the sun as much as possible.

Having a set of goals keeps me going.  Most of them are a lot harder to achieve that my wrist tan line.

In July of 2006, I started taking classes to get a North Carolina real estate license.  This week just shy of the first anniversary of that event, I will collect my first check from a closing.

It has been a long road with classes, a state exam, more classes, more exams, and finally finding a place to work and meeting their requirements.

I started work in the middle of  January but the company had a requirement that I preview all of their 200 listings were I could  do desk duty.

Once I became active in March, I started sending out mailings.  We're now getting ready to do our fourth mailing which will actually be the fifth to some of our initial potential customers.

A lot of goals are hard to measure, but thankfully creating websites and driving traffic to them can fairly easily be measured.

These are some stats that I keep on a few of the web sites where I monitor traffic.

When I first started with my blogging effort my goal was to get to 100 people a day.   Then I shot for five hundred.  Now I am averaging over 1,500 people per day in total visiting the sites that I measure.  Today my sites will easily approach 2,500 visitors or maybe more because of a post that I did on the iPhone.  It has stirred up the Apple faithful who are a little sensitive to criticism of their new toys.

I just started a blog for the Reston, Virginia area.  It has averaged about eight visitors a day over its short life of less than two months.  Most days now there are between 10 and 20 visitors so I am happy with its progress.

When we decided to move from Nova Scotia, we had a number of goals that eventually got us to Columbia, Maryland.  Likewise it took even more planning with benchmarks to get us to Roanoke, VA and eventually on to Cape Carteret, NC.

Once you get into goal setting, it becomes a way of eating the big elephant one bite at a time.

I even have goals for my gardening.  Each of the last few years, I have tried to have a ripe tomato before July 4th.  I haven't made that particular goal very often, but this year I had a ripe tomato on July 5th.  In 2005 I had an almost there tomato.  Just because I might not make it one year, does not mean that I give up.

I wanted to go boating at our new home location near Cape Carteret, NC.  Last fall I took the Coast Guard Auxiliary Boating course and exam.  I also spent time studying charts, talking to experts, reading books, and eventually hiring someone to teach me some of the skills.  I feel pretty comfortable in a boat now, though I know I have lots to learn.

When I worked for Apple Computer, we used to go through a team goal setting process each year.  It allowed us as a team to establish joint and individual goals.  It was a valuable process because we monitored our progress on a regular basis and made changes as needed.

Allowing your team to help set goals for you and themselves instead of telling them what to do is a powerful way to move from being just a manager to being a real leader.

Reasonable goal setting is a great way to get your people working with you instead of just for you.

Comments

[Kay T.]

Hi
I fully agree with you. I like to write my goals on a blank 3 x 5 card with black ink with my favorite pen.
I then get up at 4am initially and read my written goals aloud and meditate on them.
Kay T.

[Wes]

I love to fish as much as the next guy. I just stopped by to say you have a great blog. Keep up the good work!