Setting Goals for Success With a Complete System to Make Them Happen Without Overwhelm
You know it! Setting goals for success is what makes your dreams a reality. Easier said than done! Here is my complete system to define and achieve your goals while reducing the overwhelm:
You know it! It is important to have goals. You’ve heard it so many times.
It is that time of the year to set your goals.
In fact, what you really want is setting goals for success.
You try to do that every year and... let’s be honest...
Challenges come on the day to day:
Conflicting priorities
‘Fires’ to resolve
A family to look after
… the list goes on!
Have you had a ‘Oh God! I need to post tomorrow and I don’t even know what to post!’ type of feeling?
Or have you got a so-called ‘9-5’ job that is more like ‘6-22’ non-stop and you have no time to do what’s needed to meet your goals for your side hustle?... You wish you could!
You are done with your new year resolutions. They are just a waste of time. Impossible to stick to them.
Year after year, you spend time setting goals for success for the year and things come in the way of really achieving them.
This thing about goals is a good thoughtful aspiration. How do you really make it happen?
Or maybe, you are a strong believer in goals... but then what? What is the secret method to know what to do everyday to make them a reality?
I totally understand. I have been there too, juggling too many things, always thinking time was the issue. This blog took me long to launch. The thing is, I had read so many times the same from other bloggers. Still, if you had asked me at the time, I would have spent a while explaining the things that seemed more important. I just simply did not use the methods that had served me so well to drive complex programmes to successful completion. It is easy to deviate from our goals!
That’s why it is great to have a system.
A system that not only sets goals but also anticipates the challenges and establishes the right habits and mindset.
I am going to share with you my complete system for setting goals for success.
Because you not only need goals but also a system to make them happen without overwhelm!
First of all, let’s set an important basis for this conversation about setting goals for success... Even before you think about goals…
Allow yourself to have dreams.
Yes, have a dream.
And always let it them guide you.
Because, before you start defining goals to drive yourself to achieve them, the fundamentals behind your goals are your dreams.
So let’s start with a deep commitment to have clarity about what your dreams are. Never forget them!! Always embrace them. They are your bright star that guides your journey and enlightens your path when things get on your way.
When you spend a short amount of time writing your dreams, you can not overthink them. And that’s the whole idea.
That dream of yours is in your heart, not your head. Just let it out and write it down! Don’t be afraid.
Don’t be surprised if you feel afraid or uncomfortable doing this short exercise. The fact is that is very frequent to have the inner fear of not achieving our dreams… and it feels that articulating them, writing them, telling others about them, can bring us closer to not achieving them. Just the mere fact of admitting that that’s what we really dream of… can make us fear that we will not get there. If you don’t say it, you don’t fail… It is very, very normal to feel like that. But still, the wrong approach to dreams.
Remember, it is only the fear that paralyses us. Not the dream.
It all starts with a dream.
That big dream is the engine that will drive everything else, including setting your goals for success. Your dream will:
Shape your ambitions.
Define your aspirations for your lifestyle .
Help you visualise your life journey.
Guide you every day.
Give you a sense of purpose.
Help you explain to others your purpose.
We easily forget this one.
We are social animals.
It matters to most of us how others perceive us and understand what are role in life is. Our social role.
Ok, you are thinking, that all makes sense BUT...
... Every year you have the impression that a million different things have come in the way of achieving your dream, even when you take the time to define your goals. A constant battle.
How to crack it this year ?
So once you have clarity on your dreams, the next steps is setting goals and defining a way to achieve them. That will put you in the path you want.
Goals on their own are not enough. That’s where many people fail with goals.
Never set goals without a plan. The opposite is also true :-), never have a plan without goals!
So let’s get specific and see how to best achieve these two things: setting goals for success and a plan to achieve them.
You have seen this so many times. Setting goals for success seems to start with defining SMART goals.
SMART goals are ok. They do a certain job. But…
How many times have you not delivered your SMART goals?
SMART goals do not mobilise your inner you.
You need goals that you WANT to achieve, not simply that you have to achieve.
And that’s where my SMART PRO element comes in. I have designed the SMART PRO method to enable you to define goals that drive your mindset. Let me explain…
When you next define your goals, beyond making them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bounded (SMART), add these 3 important characteristics:
PERSONAL: Goals need to resonate with you at a personal level. If they are too clinical, you don’t feel attached to them. For example:
SMART goal:
“Launch online course about email marketing by March.”
Add the Personal spice:
“Launch my brand new ‘Email Marketing A to Z for Female Online Entrepreneurs’ by March.”
The second version feels definitely more yours. It is far more relatable. It is exciting. It makes you want to do it! The first SMART version could be anyone else’s.
RESULTS-DRIVEN: Goals need to show “what is in it for you” by achieving them.
Think about the second example above. It meets all the criteria for a SMART goal, and it is Personal… But so what? What is the point of going through all that launch work?
Add a Result-Driven incentive to your goals.
“Launch my brand new ‘Email Marketing A to Z for Female Online Entrepreneurs’ by March and achieve a $10,000 launch.”
The launch without the income is meaningless. By launching, what you want (as an example), is to generate that level of revenue.
OUTSTANDING: Goals need to achieve something special, be stretching enough to be REALLY meaningful when you achieve them to get you close to your dreams.
Nothing drives less action than a goal that is not ambitious enough.
If it’s easy, it it less meaningful, less attractive to achieve. It does not feel special when you get there. So you will not give it your all to make it happen.
Goals, while realistic and achievable, need to be challenging. It is in the challenge that the real satisfaction and fulfilment comes.
“Launch my brand new ‘Email Marketing A to Z for Female Online Entrepreneurs’ by March and achieve a $10,000 launch to get my business to 6 figures.”
The “PRO” element of the SMART PRO framework is the one that truly works with your MINDSET. The unconscious side of the goal. It drives your motivation, desire to success, your energy to keep on driving for your goal even when things get tough. And they always do.
Goals need to resonate with the inner you.
By defining SMART PRO goals, you will inject in your goals the component that explains WHY it matters to you to make them happen, what you gain at the end.
Don’t think that you fail a goal because you should have never set that goal, because you feel it was too ambitious ...
9 out of 10 times setting goals for success fails because of the mindset and the execution, not because of the goal itself.
Now that you have your SMART PRO goals defined, let’s get to the next step.
Spend some time identifying the key critical success factors for your goal.
Key critical success factors are the elements that you need to have or that need to happen so that you can achieve your goal.
Once you are clear on the key things you need to make happen your goals (your critical success factors), you can move to define how to make them happen: your plan.
Setting goals for success and a plan to make them happen are two things that need each other.
Think about it…
If you haven’t got a plan, your goals will not happen by chance. A to-do-list is not a plan. Your to-do-list will keep you very busy… but the chances are, you will not be doing the right things to achieve your goals.
So after setting your SMART PRO goals and defining your critical success factors, move to defining a plan.
Before going into the simple steps of how to set your plan, though, let me start with something that you don’t hear much about plans...
When planning, don’t overplan. There is nothing worse than overplanning.
I share this anecdote to highlight 3 things:
Setting goals for success is likely to fail when:
you have no plan to execute them.
you spend too much time planning and not doing.
when your plan is so complex that it lacks the big picture, and it is difficult to follow.
Obviously there are other things that can hinder goals… These three are the ones related to getting the right balance when planning.
Let me share with you the 2 golden rules in the world of planning:
Only define detailed plans for the next 90 days.
To stick to your plan: keep it simple.
After 90 days, things are likely to have changed and moved on. So you are better off not planning in detail beyond 90 days (3 months).
Maintaining focus is challenging in our hyperactive world with so many competing activities. The reality is that to focus and be productive working from home you need a few simple things. Check out my blog on how to go from hustle to healthy, balanced and productive work and get your Take Action Checklist to maintain focus to reach your ambition in a balanced way!
Fantastic!!!!
Now you have a great basis:
goals per quarter.
a simple enough plan for the next quarter.
monthly and weekly deadlines that define your daily priorities.
Set achievable priorities and give yourself permission to be ok if you don’t do certain things in your to do list.
The whole point is to acknowledge that the volume of things to do in a week are far more than your priorities.
This is what creates anxiety and overwhelm. The endless list.
So accept that, as you focus on what truly makes a difference, that is your weekly priorities, other things might suffer. And that’s totally ok.
It is not the purpose of this blog to go in-depth onto productivity tools such as Trello, Asana, Monday or bullet journals.
Use or not use tools if they work for you when setting goals for success.
Some people can not function without, some feel that they slow them down.
My view is simple for entrepreneurs:
Don’t think that you need to invest in a project management tool like Asana, Trello or Monday as a must.
You can try their free versions to form a view.
See how it feels for you.
I recommend you use them if you have a team. They can truly help:
balance out the team workloads,
drive clarity of assigned tasks,
align everyone around clear goals, milestones, priorities and deadlines.
If you feel project management tools are not for you, go with a combination of paper, your phone/computer calendar and notes.
Ok, ok, that was quite a lot to take on.
You are making huge progress!!!!
Still a few things on setting goals for success to go through to have a complete system. So let’s keep on going.
In this section, I am going to share with you my 4 rules to build the right habits to hit your goals. We are going to have a bit of fun with their names, so that you remember them:
The Rule of 3
The Holiday Rule
The Cake Rule
The Birthday Rule
Hahaha!!!! I am not losing it. Just having some fun. You’ll see, these 4 secret rules are going to make you adopt the habits that successful entrepreneurs follow.
When you create routines, habits that help you stick to doing the right things regularly, your efforts go on auto-pilot, you consume less mental energy and exhaustion.
Your brain spends less time internally fighting the battle between knowing you should do something and not feeling like wanting to do it. You just do it because it has become a routine.
I have already given you a hint on this one before.
We all know that setting goals for success and achieving them comes with hard work and sacrifices.
Nothing better than fixing deadlines and driving to hit them. The more you do it, the more you understand how you function to hit them.
There is a quite well known fact: you will take as long for a task as you give yourself time to do it.
So set deadlines to progress towards your goals.
I am working to finish this blog today… It is my personal priority for the day. As many of you, I am pushing myself to get my blogs out regularly.
Your rule of 3 is here to help you out with a framework to drive your priorities through the day, when so many of competing tasks demand your time.
The rule of 3 is your overarching time investment rule.
Don’t get overwhelm by the big goal, chunk it down in little achievable deadlines and it will feel so much better.
Time is everything. You manage it. Take control. Be ruthless. But how????
There is one thing that works fantastically well...
Let’s talk for a second about holidays.
Now it’s time to apply the same to your time to hit your goals.
This technique is widely used by executives. Time blocking. Essential. You do it to be able to go on holidays. Just apply the Holiday Rule to become the master of your time.
Let me ask you another question that may sound strange…
Setting goals for success and executing your plan also need good measures, also called metrics.
So this is my so called The Cake Rule!
Define the metrics for your plan & goals and track them regularly.
Check out how you are doing on a regular basis but not too often as it could become counterproductive.
Too many measures and data is also counterproductive. Limit your metrics to the right ones to indicate your progress to your goals.
Ok, deep breath… The above looks like a lot.
Actually, if you are honest you probably look at some of these even more frequently… and probably you look at much more measures than the ones above.
The beauty and trap with all the great tools we have these days is that they are filled with soooooo many measures. Fascinating, I know!
I do it too! I love data.
You can spend quite a while just extrapolating trends, analysing, interpreting, wondering what ifs… Endless.
So here goes a pro-top tip for you: manage your business and make informed decision, with the help of data. Don’t drown in data. Don’t waste your time looking at data too often. You need to give time for it to move and evolve… but not too long.
It is far more satisfying to see 100 more subscribers in a week than seeing just a few in a day!
So we have now covered 3 rules to create important habits to be successful with your goals:
The Rule of 3: Set 3 weekly deadlines, and 3 daily priorities every week.
The Holiday Rule: Pre-block time in advance to ensure you will have pre-allocated time for your priorities and repetitive tasks.
The Cake Rule: Define what measures are right for your business and use them weekly, monthly and quarterly to make informed decisions. Don’t have too many measures and don’t look at them too often though!
So is that all?…
The most important of the habits is still missing! And this is actually the one that is most often forgotten…
The Birthday Rule.
Would you go through a birthday and totally forget to celebrate? Some people don’t like to celebrate theirs (my husband is one of them!) but even in those cases, they will not let down someone else close to them without celebrating their birthday. Birthdays are special occasions.
So here is the Birthday Rule: Celebrate systematically successes (even little ones)!
With setting goals for success, there is a natural tendency to think that celebrating is only justified when you achieve the Big goal.
Well, do you remember that we talked about critical success factors before?
Do you know which one is the MOST important critical success factor to achieve your goals… MOTIVATION!!!!!!
So help yourself every day, every week, every month, every quarter… and celebrate. Yes, celebrate and celebrate. Little and frequent celebrations are great!
Mindset coaches call them affirmations.
Don’t wait for the big thing.
Small little wins are great! Because they all build to the bigger goals and…
… keep you positive!
Positive is energy and motivation.
All about your mindset, your positive mindset!
Get in the habit of feeding positivity to your mind and you will get so much closer to be successful and meet your goals!
We are now coming to the the point that everyone wishing to achieve their goals needs to embrace… A reality check.
Things do not happen always according to plan…
I will share this with you...
I have led product launches, projects, programmes, very complex transformations… and the common point between them is that life is always far more complex than what one can anticipate or imagine. Things happen. And therefore sometimes plans don’t go according to what we thought they would.
No panic! That’s the nature of plans!
The best plans to achieve goals are those that adapt.
That’s why you should not over plan.
Accept that sometimes you need to get off plan and it is that you may achieve the best results. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying spend time defining a plan to just bin it as soon as something happens.
The purpose of this section is to establish a framework where you:
assess what can go wrong in advance and how to minimise the risks before they happen.
have the right mindset to face adversity.
understand your behavioural tendencies to positively face challenges.
Let’s look at a couple of simple examples of risks management versus goals and how it make sense to make risk management part of your plan.
Now, that all sounds super logical, isn’t it.
The same can be applied to your business plan.
Let’s look at an online course launch example, to bring the point home.
These 2 examples are to highlight that, in order to reach your goals, you need to manage your risks: anticipate what could go wrong with your plan and do something about it in advance to reduce the chances of that happening.
Remember that one great tool to anticipate risks is your measures. Look at your measures and what they indicate.
Your measures are your early warning alarms. When you look at your trends: are they going in the wrong direction? Are your volumes not high enough?…
Take action early and adapt your plan.
Let’s face it.
Even with the best plans and risk management systems in place, sometimes things just go wrong.
Don’t close your eyes when things don’t go as planned.
So, despite the fact that we don't like things going wrong, and it is truly difficult to face problems, the solutions do not come from a do nothing, hide, approach.
As an online entrepreneur, train yourself to face adversity.
Easier said than done. I know. We all go through that big "Oh s..." moment.
This is a mindset technique to ensure that, when faced with upset or problems, you can move on quickly to solution-mode.
It can also help not to be too hard on yourself or too understanding.
Look at yourself as your boss, and be your own fair boss. And then think how you would approach with your kids: firm and soft. Do the same with yourself!
To help find the right balance, assess objectively and cold-minded the situation. If you feel you are too agitated or upset, leave some time before taking any decision. And yes, a good night sleep can help you see things more clear the day after.
Depending on our personality, we will face challenges differently. Typically we all fall under one or more of these leadership profiles:
Process orientated: This people analyse before considering a decision. They are data, fact based. They prefer to have a clear process to operate and redefine a new one if the existing is not working.
Action oriented: They prefer to make a decision and move to action. They feel reflection, planning or preparation for too long is a waste of time.
Emotional: They react intensely to situations, quite extremely. They can have breakdowns, or feel that things are horrible and insurmountable when faced with adversity.
People, team orientated: They will consider the others around them first. They will seek inputs and prefer consensus with others for decisions.
The above profiles help you to be conscious of how you are more likely to react to difficult situations.
By understanding yourself, you can work on compensating for your tendencies and find a balanced solution to your challenges.
For instance:
An emotional person can benefit from cooling down before making a decision.
A process orientated person may need to consider whether a whole new detailed process or a highly complex data analysis is really needed before moving to action.
An action orientated person might need to pause before taking a decision to understand how it is affecting others and whether there is a need for more analysis before jumping into doing something.
You get the hang of it.
Awareness of your style will help you spot when you are leaning too much into a narrow approach in your solution to a challenge.
We are all face challenges that can hinder our goals on a day to day basis.
Facing challenges is not bad. Panicking and over-reacting is the thing to avoid.
So now you have a system to face challenges and find solutions to things that could deviate you from reaching your goals.
Challenges, problems, disappointments, upsets, surprises are all part of your journey as entrepreneur.
They are your companion in your journey as an entrepreneur.
My first boss kept on repeating: “Do not use the word ‘problems’, only challenges. Every challenge brings an opportunity. So embrace challenges, don’t hate them!”
I know!!! You must be thinking I have completely lost it! But not really.
Being an entrepreneur, the same way that having a senior position in a corporate, is many times about facing the challenges, resolving the unexpected, changing direction as needed to meet your goals. It is just not about creating, selling, achieving.
It is many times about finding the way through a storm.
We all love predictability, balance, wins, things working to plan…
The fact is that life is a world of surprises.
We want to be in control.
And we are for a while.
And then we are not.
The more we get used to that, the more we develop skills to act when faced with challenges, ambiguity and the unknown.
We are the same.
We have cumulated a baggage of experiences that have made us prefer to be in control.
As an entrepreneur, you are walking your own discovery adventure.
And with that comes a journey of experiences, surprises and challenges. It is very normal to physically (as well as mentally) feel the tension that comes with that. It is not bad. Just normal.
It is the journey that matters, the learning experiences, the richness of engaging with others.
And when ambiguity hits you, and you don’t really know what’s best:
acknowledge you are faced with an equation without a clear answer
deploy your common sense
analyse options, use your measures and your risk mitigation plan, and
take the decision that feels right for you.
Remember, facing challenges does not mean you have failed or will fail your goal, or that your plan has not worked.
It is normal: your plan is a living thing.
Like the driver behind the wheel:
set your destination (define your SMART PRO goals)
plan your journey (define your plan to achieve your goals)
drive to make progress (use your 4 essential habits: The Rule of 3, the Holiday Rule, the Cake Rule, the Birthday Rule),
be alert (define your risk management plan),
take action when needed (adapt your plan), and
most importantly, enjoy the ride and celebrate your progress (build your positive mindset).
Goals!... It feels so difficult to achieve them with so much going on...
Your big dream is the engine that will drive everything else when setting goals for success.
Ok but...
... a million different things have come in the way of achieving your dream!
How to achieve them??
Don't set SMART goals... get SMART PRO goals!
SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bounded.
SMART goals are likely to fail, because they do not motivate you.
So make your goals SMART PRO goals:
SMART plus…
PERSONAL: Goals need to resonate with you at a personal level.
RESULTS-DRIVEN: Goals need to show ‘what is in it for you’ by achieving them.
OUTSTANDING: Goals need to achieve something special, be stretching enough to be REALLY meaningful.
The “PRO” element of the SMART PRO framework is the one that mobilises the unconscious side of a goal, your MINDSET.
Goals need to resonate with the inner you.
Do you know your critical success factors?
Key critical success factors are the things you need to have or that need to happen to achieve your goals.
Spend some time identifying the key critical success factors for your goal.
Set a plan but don’t over-plan.
WORK BACKWARDS from your deadline / quarterly achievement to assess if it feels doable.
COMPETING PRIORITIES: Other day-to-day things will come to consume your time... stick to your deadlines.
Priorities versus permission
Set achievable priorities and give yourself permission not to do certain things in your to do list if they are not a priority.
Tools... use or not to use productivity tools
Use or not use tools if they works for you. Try them for free and decide.
If you have a team, tools will help align everyone to your goals.
Habit 1: The Rule of 3
To keep super focused during your week:
Set 3 weekly deadlines at the end of the week for next.
Set 3 priorities for the day, either first thing in the morning or last thing the day before.
Write them down.
Habit 2: The Holiday Rule:
Pre-block time in your calendar days in advance (the same way you do to be able to go on holidays!).
Habit 3: The Cake Rule:
All good cakes need the right measures. Achieving goals and executing a plan to success also needs good measures.
Define the metrics for your plan & goals and track them regularly.
PRO-TIPs:
Check out your metrics on a regular basis but not too often as it could become counterproductive.
Too many measures and data is also counterproductive. Limit your metrics to the right ones to indicate the progress to your goals.
Habit 4: The Birthday Rule:
Get in the habit of celebrating successes… as we have the habit of celebrating birthdays.
Celebrate successes (even little ones!) regularly.
Little and frequent celebrations are great! Don’t wait for the big thing. It help your MINDSET!
Remember, your MINDSET is the best engine to reach your goals.
Things do not happen always according to plan… That’s the nature of plans!
The best plans to achieve goals are those that adapt. That’s why you should not over plan.
Plan for things going wrong... before they happen!
Your metrics are your early warning signs. Take action early and adapt your plan.
The mindset of facing adversity:
Don’t close your eyes when things don’t go as planned. As an online entrepreneur, train yourself to face adversity.
When faced with upset or challenges, move on quickly to solution-mode.
Use the tennis player technique.
Be conscious of who you are.
Depending on our personality, we will confront challenges differently.
Types of leadership profiles:
Process orientated
Action oriented
Emotional
People, team orientated
Knowing your profile will help you be conscious of how you are more likely to react to difficult situations.
By understanding yourself, you can work on compensating for your tendencies and find a balanced solution to your challenges.
We all love predictability, balance, wins, things working to plan…
The fact is that life is a world of surprises.
The more we get used to that, the more we develop skills to act when faced with challenges and the unknown.
Normalise ambiguity and the unknown in your journey to achieve your goals.
When you face ambiguity, you don’t really know what’s best. So:
acknowledge there are no clear answers
use common sense
analyse options, use your measures and your risk mitigation plan, and and
take the decision that feels right for you.
Now, time to put it into action to achieve your dream! You have now a solid system to make it a reality.
What next?
Take some time out to revisit your dream. Align your goals to your dream. And set your plan and mindset to succeed.
And please, don’t forget to tell me:
As with any of my posts, a HUGE thank you for being with me until the end of this post.
It is an absolute privilege to know that you read and find value in my blog!
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Hi! I’m Isabel
For years and years I have created and produced content, in particular visual content. You can find me very often with my cameras and tripod out and about!
My passion: to help you with your online presence and drive business growth through my blog and visuals collections (marketing templates, styled photos & video).
Ah, I have also worked for 24+ in the corporate world, leading quite a mix: transformation, marketing, coaching, sales, productivity, programme management, investments and product management.
I love sharing all these skills with you in my blog.
I am also founder of Agavea Properties, our family holiday rental business. My husband and I lead it with the passion with one goal in mind: serving our customers to create a memorable holiday experience for them.
So there you have it, that’s me! Ah... I almost forgot, my happy place is by the sea.
Thanks for being here with me!