Your Business Starts up …
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009Goals & Targets Settings Training From Christine
I accompanied Christine on a training session last week. It was a motivating and constructive experience for me as well, as for the trainees. It was delivered at the Oldham Enterprise Factory to the current group of student entrepreneurs. Christine was invited to talk to each group and shared her experiences of starting a business. One of the most interesting parts of the day was when Christine outlined the power of the goal settings and I thought I would share it with you.
The section was titled ‘What do you have to do to make your business a success?’
Quite simply the message was …
‘Know your destination and the plan your route’.
Like the others in the group I was writing down my destination which is my goal appeared very loose. Christine encouraged all of us to add The SMART Formula to our goals.
SMART stands for:
Specific
Measure-able
Achievable
Realistic
Timely
Specific means to be clear about your goal. If it isn`t specific it could take you longer to achieve or at worst you may never achieve it, because it is too ‘woolly and loose’. Specific is the difference between saying, ‘I want to lose weight’ and ‘I will lose a total of 20lbs’.
Measurable means to have something against which you can chart your progress. Beyond The Box is keen on measurements, because if it can be measured it gets done. To add a measurement the phrase could be ‘I will loose a total 20lbs in 3 months. If you know you will be achieving your goal in 3 months time, you can plan your timetable to meet your set date and you can measure your success and achievements against it to ensure you are on the track. If you are not on track, you can make changes to ensure you revert back to it as quickly as you can.
Achievable is an important factor when you are setting goals. If your goal is totally unachievable, you are setting up yourself for failure. Make your goal achievable. I will loose a total of 20lbs per week and I will do this by eating a healthy diet and taking regular exercise.
Realistic means just that is it realistic to loose 2lbs per week? Yes, it is. But to loose 14lbs per week is probably unrealistic for most of us!
Timely - is it the right time to put your goal into action? Is everything in your life focused towards supporting your goal. For instance if you are like me, there is little point in starting a healthy eating plan when you are under pressure of work. That would not be timely for me!
I have already started to think about the goals I want to plan and by following this simple formula it makes the journey really exciting.
The secret for me was when Christine asked us to travel forward in time to the date we had set for achieving our goal. It was quite exciting when we were told to imagine that we now had our goal and think about how we felt. What was different now when we owned it and how much were we enjoying it! What an amazing experience!
Such a lovely surprise that one of the ladies attending the course sent this e-mail to Christine the day after attending her course, clearly Nicole was as inspired as me!
Here is Nicole`s e-mail …
Hi
I attended your lesson at the business factory yesterday and I just wanted to let you know how good it was.
I can`t tell you how positive I left afterwards so much so I felt confident enough to go and ask for some work experience at my local florist, something I had been putting off doing because I was too scared and embarrassed (don`t ask why!)
The lady was really nice and has allowed me do 2-3 hours on my day off which I am so happy about.
I also was proactive and set up a facebook page last night, putting my photos up of work I had done and from this (approx 20 mins after I had set it up) I have provisionally got a wedding booked in for November.
So ‘THANK YOU’ for your excellent talk I was elated the whole day.
All the best and success,
Nicole
Here is Christine while she is answering to the inquiries of the trainees during session.
Have you heard of any other ways of achieving your goal??? If you do, please drop me a line about it!
