The Best Way to Meet Your Business Goals

We all know that setting goals is important, but few of us do it the right way. And unfortunately, it prevents us from reaching our goals. That’s frustrating.

We all know that setting goals is important, but few of us do it the right way. And unfortunately, it prevents us from reaching our goals. There are a lot of ways we self-sabotage: We over-complicate our goals. We’re wasting our time.

I was doing all of these things, which means I was doing my goal-setting wrong too. I’m now setting goals and achieving them. For starters, I have two types of goals: quarter and annual. I set the quarter goals at the beginning of each quarter and the annual goals at the beginning of the year. 

My mindset is: What do I want to happen this quarter, and what do I want to happen by the end of the year?

At the end of the period, I just want to go down the list, check off what’s been done, and move the ones not accomplished to a new list for the next period. I keep my goals on my calendar. I use a customer relationship management system (CRM).

What matters is that I log these goals into the notes of an activity (a task or even an appointment), and then I schedule the activity not for the end of my goal period but for the middle. So, for example, if I have goals that I want to achieve by March 31st (the end of our first calendar quarter), I list them all in the notes of a “task” that I schedule for February 15th, or approximately halfway through the quarter.

For my annual goals, I schedule the task for every four months. My goals aren’t a contest, a game, or some kind of feat. They’re simply just stuff that I want to make sure gets done during that period. So I schedule them mid-way through the period to check on myself and make sure I’m not only on track but that I’m not forgetting any.

So what kind of goals do I schedule?

Simple ones that are reasonable and that can be quantifiably achieved. Here are some of my goals for the second quarter of 2021: Make sure Megan gets certified on the new product we’re selling. Yes, that’s right, I even include personal goals because, for a small business owner, goal setting doesn’t end with one’s business.

When the quarter ends, I can go through each of these goals and tick off whether they’ve been achieved. My goals for the year are pretty similar, just on a bigger scale. I ask my employees to do the same, and then I review with them each quarter.

Here’s a fact: I oftentimes don’t accomplish my goals. We just figure out why, and then we re-set for the next period. Sometimes things happen that get in the way. But at least we know what we want to do, even if it can’t get done that quarter or even that year. Goals are just a list of stuff to get done.

When I wasn’t achieving my goals, I realized that I had been over-complicating my goal setting. I’m just making a to-do list of stuff I want to make sure gets done at the end of a quarter or by the year. So here’s how to fix your goal-setting process, ready?

Consider your goals as just tasks. Don’t overdo it but establish them for a quarter and the year. Keep a check on them, but don’t kill yourself if you’re not getting them all done. So what happens if you don’t do everything on your to-do list?

That’s how you fix this problem. That’s how you reach your goals.

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