The Growth Coach

Last year is over, this year’s first party is behind you, and now it’s time to get back to work! But before you do that, imagine it’s one year later already.

So, what’s different?

Too many business owners work too hard without really knowing what they want to achieve in life. Often, this leads to distracted or unfulfilling results in all areas of life.

The truth is, if you want to experience optimum success in life, you need to know what you want. And that starts with having a clear vision.

Every person’s vision is unique and only you know what you really want to achieve. But whatever your vision is, you’ve got to set goals in order to achieve it.

As a business-oriented person, perhaps you’re most concerned with professional success. But each aspect of your life is interrelated. How you perform in one area often has a direct impact on how you perform in another.

That’s why I recommend you take a good look at your personal vision and be more demanding of yourself when it comes to getting what you want. The best way I know of doing this is pay close attention to the various "roles" you play in your life and set goals in each of them.

Here’s an easy approach to discovering and setting effective role-based goals…

• Identify the most important roles in your life. These may include: business owner, bread winner, parent, spouse, friend, son/daughter, brother/sister, neighbor/citizen, faith member, etc.
• For each of these areas, ask yourself: How effective have I been? You should be able to grade yourself in each of these roles, and identify what you would like to do to improve your grade; i.e., be more effective in that role.
• Identify all the major responsibilities attached to each role. There are what you call OBLIGATIONS and they are mandatory. Examples of these are sending your children to school and providing a decent standard of living for the whole family.
• Identify everything what you want to achieve for each role. These are your ASPIRATIONS and they are directives – meaning, they are your guide and inspiration to do better.

Now, look at your list of obligations and aspirations… What do you see? Yes, you’re right – they are the goals and objectives you want to achieve. They'll help you bring focus, clarity, and meaning to all areas of your life.

Now, add relevant and meaningful personal goals in other areas of your life such as: finances, health and fitness, family (marriage, relationship, etc.), education (knowledge, skills, and learning), fun/play, toy/possessions, character development, spirituality, other.

This is just one of the many ideas that you can use to create goals that are clear and effective. To get more practical and actionable advice on goal setting and planning, take part in our 2012 Planning Video Series. It’s totally FREE – click here to learn more about it!