Goal-setting is just one part of the recipe to reach extraordinary achievements. And just as the plan, strategies, habits and mindset play a really important role in goal achievements, it all starts with setting and committing to one or several goals. With well-designed goals it will be easier to be focused, procrastinate less (or not at all) and feel more accountable for your success. Goal-setting is done in two major steps.

First: Answering the why and what

Begin by considering the following questions.

1. What do you want to achieve?

2. Why do you want to achieve it?

3. What will happen if this goal is not achieved?

4. What benefits and feelings will occur when the goal is accomplished?

Write down the answers before continuing to the next step.

Related readings: Have you considered your opportunity costs?

Second: Apply some of the most essential characteristics of effective and empowering goals 

Goals with the following characteristics have shown to be most effective and empowering:

5. They are stated in a personalized manner starting with I and written in present tense.

6. They are positive – focused what you do want, not what you do not want.

7. They are meaningful and aligned with your values.

8. They are clear and precise.

9. They are challenging but achievable.

10. They are prioritized and aligned with other goals.

11. They are SMART. Related readings: Make your dream smart in 5 steps

Now re-write and reorder your goals with regards to the above.

Related readings: Work for your vision and make your vision work for you

Bonus: The reality check 

Finally consider each of the goals and evaluate it honestly, answering the following questions:

• Is this your own goal?
• Is this goal really important to you?
• Does this goal make you really motivated to fight for it?

If the answer is yes to all three questions, the goal is a keeper and ready to be acted on. If not, go back to question II and consider why this goal is or isn’t important and why you truly want it.

If you’d like advice on goal setting, do not hesitate to contact me for personal mentoring

This is a post in a series. To learn more about how to include your goals into actions, habits and lifestyle, stay tuned for future posts.

In order to make your goal smart you need to consider whether it is:

Specific

Be precise in what you want. A large part of my clients when they first start talking about financial goals, say “I would like to be a millionaire” or “I would like to be financially independent”. The first follow-up question I then ask to reflect over is: What does this really mean to you? For some individuals it means 2 million SEK for others $100 million. The answer is always varied and is usually connected to different kind of lifestyles and dreams. 

In one sentence: Remember to be as precise as possible in what you want. 

Measurable

Make the goal as quantifiable as possible. If you are looking to advance in your career, which position and company is the target? If you are looking to start to a company, when will you feel that you have achieved that goal; when the business website is launched? When you have gotten your first paying client? Or when you are grown to another market? Many of us have different ideas and perceptions of what a word or formulation mean to us under a specific period, so in order to really be able to track your progress over time be as clear as possible what you really mean in the moment of writing your goal down. 

In one sentence: Make the goal clear, measurable and trackable. 

Attainable

The goal needs to be aligned with other goals and also given priority. It’s important that you feel challenged by it but at the same time keeping it achievable.

In one sentence: Keep it achievable and challenging.  

Relevant

Make the goal relevant for you today, your current lifestyle and in alignment with your priorities. Also, remember the opportunity cost of putting the goal off for the future and what that really cost you. Ensure that the goal is something with a true meaning for you today and not who you were 10 years ago.

In one sentence: Keep it relevant and meaningful to you as you are right now. 

Related readings: Have you considered your alternative costs?

Time bound

When do you want it to be a reality? Napoleon Hill reminds us that “a goal is a dream with a deadline”, so make sure to set a deadline or a date when you are looking to see this goal achieved.

In one sentence: Decide on a deadline for your goal and commit to it. 

A few examples

Below you find three examples of how goals usually are expressed by clients before they are made smart.

Overall target – realizing an entrepreneurial dream

The wrong way: I want to have my own firm.

The smart way: I want to start a scalable business in the travel industry starting with UK as a test market together with my old colleague Daniel in London by August 2013.

Overall target – advancement in one’s career

The wrong way: I want to new job.

The smart way: I want to excel in my career by working at Excellentia as a sales manager for the Nordic market by December 2013.

Overall target – more money

The wrong way: I want to be financially independent.

The smart way: I want to be able to invest $100,000 as an angel investor, buy a second home in Brazil and have $2 million in stocks and cash by January 2016.

Related readings: It’s time to achieve your goals

What’s your goal?

Post your goals in the comments and I’ll show you how to make them SMARTer. Or contact me directly to help you develop your goals to make them more actionable, measurable and attainable.

To quote the extraordinary entrepreneur that changed the world: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Take the time to watch this outstanding 15 minute talk.

Read more about Steve Jobs’ life and journey in his biography on how he revolutionized several industries in his lifetime.

See larger image Steve Jobs (Hardcover) By (author) Walter Isaacson List Price: $35.00 USD New From: $8.68 In Stock Used from: $3.91 In Stock Release date October 24, 2011.

You need to consistently act and be willing to fail in order to fulfill your dreams. Read more about Steve Jobs’ life and journey in his biography on how he revolutionized several industries in his lifetime.

Take the time to watch this inspirational clip from one of the most influential entrepreneurs of our time.

See larger image Steve Jobs (Hardcover) By (author) Walter Isaacson List Price: $35.00 USD New From: $8.68 In Stock Used from: $3.91 In Stock Release date October 24, 2011.

Take the time to watch this excellent inspirational story from one of the most influential books I’ve ever read.

See larger image The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (Hardcover) By (author) Charles Duhigg List Price: $28.00 USD New From: $13.01 In Stock Used from: $11.95 In Stock Release date February 28, 2012.

How do you prepare yourself for an event, conference or an afterwork? How do you know if it was a great use of your time?

Set yourself up for success by applying the power of three. A great event leaves you feeling energized, focused and motivated. In order to get even more out of it, prepare yourself before going there by setting the target to leave the event with at least:

1 idea, 1 connection and 1 opportunity.

Let this help you prioritize your time at the event and make sure to act upon the new insights and connections after it. By having clear targets, you will increase your chances to have an even greater experience.

Read more about taking your networking skills to the next level by connect, care and make an impression 

Start 2013 by excelling towards your goals 

Here are some elements for your journey towards further success and happiness for the year to come.

Goals

When formulating powerful goals, make sure that the goals are smart*, personal and positive. Focus on what you want and leave out negative formulations such as: “I don’t”. Ensure that all your goals are compatible with each other. Ask yourself: Do you feel inspired and challenged by them? Are you setting yourself up for success? The answers to those questions should be yes.

*Smart stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. 

Plan

While committing to a goal is the first step, the second and just as important, is to break it down into milestones and tasks. Hence, create a action plan and incorporate it into your daily schedule. This will serve you in a variety of ways including enable you to experience a great sense of achievement during the journey towards your goals and track your progress along the way.

Creative time

Not all time during the day is the same. Some time-slots during the day, you have an easier time to feel energized, focused and experience flow. Make sure to use that time wisely.  So, when are you usually the most creative and productive during the day? When do you have the greatest opportunity to experience flow? Use this time for your most important and demanding tasks.

Prioritize

Prioritizing the most valuable asset –  your time. Prioritize your time in alignment with what’s important to you and that directly connects to your goals. How would you divide your time between work, play and rest? What would you include and what would you leave out?

Perfect week

When visualizing the perfect week filled with energy, focus and happiness – how does it look like? What would you do? Is there any daily habits you would perform? Is the anything you would avoid doing?

Dream list

“It always seems impossible until it’s done” - Nelson Mandela

Aim higher and transform your dreams into achievable goals. Ask yourself:

- What’s your dream trip?

- What do you dream about achieving in business and professional life?

- Which skills would you love to master?

- Who do you dream about meeting?

- What would be the experience of your dreams?

Commit – plan – act!

Visualizing success 

Watching the sky lighting up from fireworks from a majestic balcony on a terrific New Years Eve party with people holding their breath before the countdown to 2014, you are looking back on what has been your best year so far. How would you describe your success during the year? How would it feel? And what would be the tipping points and most significant experiences during that year?

You find the action plan to get you started on excelling towards your goals here

My greatest wishes for an excellent year to come 

A year filled with excitement and success both in the short and long term as well as countless of laughs. A year consisting of so much progress professionally and personally that you have taken the next step in your strive towards excellence. All the progress with your company and the advancements within your team, the moments of brilliance and times where your co-workers seemed to radiate of energy. All the long nights in front of your computer and the sensation you got after closing the largest deal in your career. All those occasions working on late night presentations with your passionate staff. All those great dinners with your advisors and mentors and inspiring conferences and trips around the world. You look back at all those great meetings with ambitious people who went from success to excellence and are striving to change the world.

Looking at the young children playing around the Christmas tree, you start to think about what Christmas means to you and what it seems to mean for people around you. You smile when you think back on the stranger giving you a hand with your heavy bag at the airport and your offer to split the last sandwich with a stranger on the plane. Christmas is really the time of the year when the whole world seems to come together if just for a little moment and all these great little things really sticks with you. Compassion, kindness and happiness just seems to be more present than during any other time of the year.

It is always something quite special to stop for a second and take in the environment after landing at a new destination. Regardless of who are waiting to meet up with the travelers – boyfriends or girlfriends, old friends or new companions, mentors or students, husbands or wives, children or grandparents, the smiles and the love they all share spreads joy within the heart of those who watches them. Travelers from distant cultures crosses the great oceans to see the people who are close to them if just briefly. Christmas is a time to bring people together regardless if it is in person, for a long phone call or simply a heart-warming email.

You reflect over that Christmas is about sharing great moments and remembering what is truly important to you. You feel a strong sensation of happiness and an appreciation for your surroundings, people in your life and the talents that you possess.

Taking the first bite of a gingerbread shaped like an angel, you reach for a piece of paper, a pen and recollect the old advise once given by your first mentor many years ago. What are your main goals? Why are those important to you? When achieved, what will they entail? What kind of skills would you like to develop this year? What kind of experiences would you like to have?

After many sips of the coffee your minds begins to wonder and you write down several notes. After a couple of more minutes watching the fire, you start to contemplate over Nelson Mandela’s saying “it always seems impossible until it’s done” and you decide to add another goal to your list. A goal that has been a dream for as long as you can remember. A goal never put on paper nor formulated into anything achievable. You feel empowered to make the decision of creating a habit of reminding yourself that the only thing stronger than fear is hope. Thinking back on the famous quote of Franklin D. Roosevelt “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, you decide to leave the fear aside for the year to come and instead focus all your energy on your abilities, goals and passions.

You take another bite of the cake and smile whilst slowly putting down your paper on the table, when you realize that you just finished the next part of your roadmap towards excellence. Walking towards the kitchen to join the others and feeling the warmth in the air, you think that there are so many magical moments to celebrate from the year that has passed and the year to come, that the one awaiting will just be another great little one.

Have a wonderful holiday!

Start 2013 by excelling towards your goals – learn more at www.fromsuccesstoexcellence.com

1. They desire achievement. Entrepreneurs find their motivation by orienting themselves toward achievement and reward. Rewards come in more forms than profit; entrepreneurs most often want to do what they do in order to prove that they can, help others, or earn recognition.

2. They want to be the best. Great entrepreneurs never want to be so-so in their industries, or just “get by” with their business. They want to be the best. Their sense of perfectionism and attraction to everything that is outstanding fuels their hard work and dedication.

3. They put their all into it. Not only must entrepreneurs work hard in order to reach their goals, they must focus every part of themselves into their venture. A true entrepreneur puts their mind, heart, and soul into the pursuit of their vision.

4. They are great communicators. An entrepreneur can communicate their vision to anyone under any circumstances and inspire excitement and belief. There may be times when the only thing they have to support their business on is the force of their conviction and personality.

5. They see the glass as half full. Entrepreneurs view the future with excitement, not anxiety. They may have fears, but they refuse to let those worries get the best of them. They are able to see the potential of opportunities and find motivation from the belief that they will succeed.

6. They are excellent at organizing people and taking charge. In order to develop the network of different personalities that a new business needs, an entrepreneur must be an expert at gathering and leading people. This expertise is built on a combination of communication ability and an innate understanding of the needs and desires of other people.

7. They are determined. Discouraging an entrepreneur is a difficult task. With their deep belief and optimism, entrepreneurs have the strength to see something to its very end and never give up.

8. They accept responsibility. Entrepreneurs hold themselves accountable for everything that happens within their venture. They understand that if things need to be changed or improved, it has to start with them.

These traits are absolutely crucial in order to be a successful entrepreneur, but they are far from the only things that are needed. With a start based on passion, talent, hard work, and target orientation, you are well on your way to realizing your dreams.

Imagine that you are watching a fantastic presenter. She knows her topic inside and out and she is enthusiastic about everything she says. She is creating a dialogue with the audience, asking questions, engaging the crowd, and developing a real stage presence. However, her slides are dense with text and you find yourself getting distracted by trying to read everything that’s on them. The presenter also hasn’t timed her presentation correctly and goes 20 minutes over her time limit, continuing to talk over the audience’s growing restlessness. As you and your colleagues are leaving after the presentation, all everyone can talk about is how late her talk went. It almost seems like everything the presenter actually talked about has just been forgotten.

This is an example where preparing well was the missing piece in the presentation. While being an exciting and engaging speaker is an important part of an overall performance, practice is the key for delivering an excellent presentation. For instance, making sure that your presentation is the right length, and the effort you put into your slides and material, can make or break your presentation.

Firstly, in order to prepare for a presentation, you must remember the reason you’re doing one. Is your goal going to be to educate or inspire your audience about the significance of a certain development in their industry for instance? Whatever your goal is, align the whole presentation around that element and its consequences. Analyze every slide and piece of information to make sure that you are including only material that directly relates to your goal. This goal should be immediately and obviously recognizable for your audience. Repeat your core message in a natural way throughout your presentation in order to further emphasize your point. However, try to avoid sounding robotic with your repetition.

Make sure that your presentation is the right length while you are practicing. Time yourself, and then leave yourself a couple extra minutes at the end just to be on the safe side. Going over your allotted time makes it seem like you don’t have respect for your audience’s time, as they may need to be somewhere else. Also, you will start to lose people’s attention as you go further and further overtime, simply because they are thinking about what they need to do after the presentation. This restlessness in the crowd will really cost you a lot of momentum in your presentation, and generally drag down the rest of the presentation in the memory and regard of your audience. You also don’t want to be the person who runs out of time at the end of a presentation and ends up rushing through the last 15 minutes of information in 2 minutes.

Practice as much as you possibly can. This is an obvious part of preparing, but it cannot be overstated. You should know your information by heart, allowing you to feel relaxed and confident while you are onstage – you should even be able to improvise with your stories and information. Try to remember ideas and core messages and not exact words, otherwise you may run into the problem of sounding robotic. Go through your presentation fully until you honestly feel ready, then relax and trust your abilities.

Your slides should be concise and, if possible, you should include effective and relevant visuals. Extra information and unnecessary words are the opposite of helpful – they distract your audience and make it hard for them to listen to everything you have to say. Since you shouldn’t need to read off your slides, keep only important words and figures that reinforce your key points on each slide. A good rule is 5 to 8 words per slide and try to include a visual that complements and enhances your message.

By keeping these key points in mind, you can create a great presentation and ready yourself to give an excellent performance.

To sum up:

1. Set one clear goal for your presentation and, for optimized effectiveness, align it with the audience’s take-away.
2. Build your presentation around your core message and repeat it.
3. Practice, practice, practice. Remember ideas and core messages, not exact words.
4. Time your presentation.
5. Keep your slides and visuals concise and effective.