Start Your Goals, Achieve Your Goals
On Your Way to Greatness!

Welcome to Module #5 of the Common Thread Success Academy coaching program on “Start Your Goals, Achieve Your Goals On Your Way to Greatness!”

Your discovery of visioning and goal setting continues in this module as you learn the eight critical success factors to setting and achieving goals.

Refer back to your Worksheet #3 – “Visioning & Goal-setting.”

Review the summary on goal setting and fill in the missing information on the worksheet (pictogram) as it comes up in the presentation.

Goal Setting

There are eight critical factors to setting and achieving solid goals:

1. Use SMART Goals.

SMART is an acronym to help you establish solid goals. SMART stands for:

Specific: Be very clear about what will be accomplished.

Measurable: Include a quantifiable way of tracking progress from start to finish.

Achievable: Challenging, and at the same time realistic.

Relevant: In harmony with your core values and passions.

Timely: Has a deadline attached to it.

2. Write Your Goals Down.

Your goals need to be written down. The actual act of writing a goal down turns your desire into something tangible.

3. Personalize Your Goals.

When creating a goal, always write it using the word “I.” Doing this marks the goal as yours, giving you ownership over it, which will drive you to reach it.

4. State Goals as if Already Achieved.

Make sure you are wording your goals properly. Your mind operates in the now. So if you want something, describe it in the present tense. This way your mind will believe it to be true which fuels it to become a reality.

So instead of stating a goal as, “I want to lose ten pounds,” reword it to reflect its accomplishment in the now: “I feel alive and healthy ten pounds slimmer!”

5. No Worry, Doubt or Fear!

Worry, doubt and fear create a negative attitude that manifest into negative experiences in your life. If you’ve ever met a negative person who seems to attract the worst luck, then you have witnessed the dark side of negative thinking. That’s why it’s important to replace negative thinking with positive thinking.

Be firm in immediately banishing any negative emotions and thinking!

6. Remember the Power of Action.

Taking action moves you forward. If you wait for the “perfect moment”, you’ll be waiting forever. In fact, there’s really no such thing as the right time to act other than now!

7. Burn the Boat!

Burning the boat means that when you reach a new shoreline, there’s no going back. When you commit yourself to achieving a goal, approach it as an ‘all or nothing’ proposition.

8. Achieving Goals Involves Failure.

It’s important to remember that even the most successful people have failures when pursuing their goals. This does not make them failures, but it does mean they were willing to take risks.

Don’t allow yourself to be discouraged by failure. Instead persevere. Often we must meet with failure to grow enough to be able to handle the success when it finally comes.

(End of Presentation)

Visioning and goal setting are most powerful when combined together. Next, you will work with a powerful tool – The Strategic Vision Worksheet – that incorporates the fundamental elements of both visioning and goal setting, and will help you to move forward in pursuing your visions.

Print out Worksheet #5 – Strategic Vision

Read the overview of the Strategic Vision Worksheet. Then return to this module.

Strategic Vision Worksheet

Part I – Discover (clear thought):

This section is all about having clarity of thought by asking the question:  “What do I want?”

Asking and answering “What do I want?” can help you determine where you want to be. This question will reveal your deep desires that will move you towards a more fulfilling life.

Answer freely without limiting thoughts or thoughts of how it will come to be.

Part II – Dream (hungry heart):

This section is all about having a hungry heart by imagining a better, more exciting future through the question:

“What will it be like to get what I want?”

In this section, you let the vision of your future ignite you! Here you imagine with no limits what your life will be like if you get what you want.

This process will not only excite you, but make you hungry for the truth your heart already knows. Instead of feeling restless, you can now approach life with certainty about where you want to go and what it will be like when you get there.

Part III – Do (defined plan):

This section is all about having a defined plan by asking the question:

“What must I do to get what I want?”

Having a vision alone is not enough. Without goals – a defined plan – it is likely that nothing will change.

Here, setting goals takes front and center. Now is the time to live intentionally. Develop SMART goals that will quicken your footsteps toward the realization of what you want.

A vision begins as a thought, but now it’s time to make that vision real through the actions you will take and the goals you will accomplish.

(End of Presentation)

Next, practice filling out the worksheet by:

1) Thinking about something you want
2) Describing a vision of what it will be like to get what you want
3) Identifying the goals and actions necessary in order to obtain what you want

Choose a manageable ‘want’ so you can get comfortable with the worksheet. You can go after a bigger ‘want’ next time when you are more familiar with the document and have more time.

Before continuing to the last module in this course, watch the video below where Jerry Gladstone explains how to reach your goals using the strategy of “Deliberate Practice” based on the findings of K. Anders Ericsson, one of the world’s leading theoretical and experimental researchers on expertise.

 

Continue to Module 6.