How to Create Powerful Goals
SUMMARY
There are 5 core elements of high quality, powerful goals
To create a goal that’s clear and specific, you must fully answer 6 "W" questions - what, who, why, where, when and which.
To ensure your goals are measurable, ask yourself 3 “H” questions - how much, how many and how will I know if it’s accomplished.
By condensing your year into 12 week increments, you’ll achieve your goals faster and get more done in a shorter span of time.
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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Last week, I shared a few things you can do right now to set yourself up so that 2021 is your best year ever. I got so many great responses from some of you and I’m really excited to see all of the amazing things you go on to accomplish in 2021. Make sure you tag me on Instgram or email me because I want to cheer you on to crush it in 2021.
This week, I want to go deeper and talk about how to create powerful goals. I gave you a little trick I use to get to the core of my goals in last week’s blog so my goals are heart-centered and motivate me to keep going in the face of challenge but once you’ve gotten to that core, there are specific elements you’ll want your goals to have to make sure they’re both effective and powerful.
There are 5 core elements of high quality, powerful goals. Those elements are:
Clear & specific
Measureable
Achievable
Relevant
Timely
These elements combined with the exercise I shared last week, which was getting clear on why the goal is important in the first place is how you create effective and powerful goals. To help give you a better understanding of these elements, I’ll explain what each element means.
Clear & Specific
A clear and specific goal is where you ask yourself, “what is it that I want to accomplish?” In asking yourself that question, you must fully answer the following 6 "W" questions - what, who, why, where, when and which.
What do you want to accomplish? Be specific.
As an example, your “what” may be to make more money in your lash business this year. Answering the 6 “W” questions, you first want to get more clear with your goal. So instead of make more money in your business, how much more money would you want to make in your business? Get specific on the dollar amount so you have a clear target. This is the “what.”
Who is involved? If it’s not just you, name the other people needed to accomplish the goal.
Making more money in your business involves attracting more clients to serve or if you are going to sell retail products, it involves vendors. So your “who” may look like, women that are age 20-30 within a 10 mile radius of your lash studio that have visited a local hair salon within the past 6 months. And to get even more specific, you could even include the exact number of clients that you’ll need to achieve your goal.
Why are you doing this? Use the exercise from last week’s blog to get clear on your why.
If you’ve already done the exercise from last week, you’ve gotten to the core of why you set the goal in the first place. But if you haven’t checked out last week’s article, definitely go back and take a look at it so you can get clear on why the goal you’re setting is important and it’s a must for you.
Where will you be? If the goal is location based, specify the location.
My guess is if you’re using the example from above, it would take place at your lash studio. But if it involves another location, this is where you can get clear on where you’ll need to be to accomplish your goal.
When does the goal start and end? Establish a time frame.
You may want to get started now and the goal ends at the end of the year. Whatever that is for you, write it down. Later on in this article, I’ll share a hack that I’ve used personally that works really well related to timelines for your goals.
Which resources do you need? Make sure you list any requirements and restraints.
Using the same example of making more money, you may need to acquire a new set of skills in order to accomplish that goal like learn how to run effective ads or learn how to design lash extensions for different eye shapes. Whatever it is, you’ll want to get really clear on the current restraints you have and the resources you need in order to accomplish your goal.
Measurable
Once your goal is clear and specific, you can move on to the next element of a powerful goal which is to make sure it’s measureable. How will you know that you’ve accomplished the goal? Here, you want to ask yourself 3 “H” questions - how much, how many and how will I know if it’s accomplished.
How much? Quantify what you need.
Using the example of make more money in your business from above, ask yourself, how much more money do you want to make in your business? Specify how much money you want to make because otherwise, if you made $5 more this year compared to last year, you will have met the goal. You want to get specific on how much you’ll need in order to accomplish your goal.
How many? Count specifically.
Let’s say you planned to accomplish this goal by attracting more clients to your business. Well how many clients would it take to reach the dollar amount you want to make in your business? Do the math and get clear on that number. Going granular in this way with your goals will give you a clear area of focus which makes it easier to create a plan to accomplish each goal.
How will I know if it’ s accomplished?
If you’ve done the work in the first two parts of the “H” questions, this part is super easy. Either you met the target or your didnt. When you have clear numbers attached to your goals, it makes them more concrete and you can easiy know whether or not you’ve met your goals.
Achievable
Once your goal is measurable, you’ll have to decide how challenging but realistic your goals are. They should stretch you beyond your comfort zone but also be attainable. So ask yourself, “can I feasibly do this? Is accomplishing this goal at least 50% believable to me? Did I set my limit so that it’s comortable, too low or too high?” Only you have the answers to these questions. Make sure you ask them however because ultimately you want to accomplish your goal. It shouldn’t be too low or too high but it should make you stretch beyond your current level of comfort.
Relevant
To determine if your goal is relevant/realistic, you need to decide if it’s worthwhile for you to spend your time and energy on it, and fully answer these questions:
Does this specific goal contribute to my life and happiness?
Does this specific goal help me to reach other important goals in my life?
Does this specific goal help me reach financial security and freedom?
These questions are extremely important because they’ll help you see if the goal you’re setting makes sense for your life right now. If it does, great! You can move forward with it. But you may ask these questions and realize that they’re great wishes for the future, but not relevant or important for your life right now. If you determine that the goal you’re setting doesn’t make sense for where you are in your life right now, you can scratch it off of your list or save it for the future when you’re at a different place in life.
Timely
You must establish a timeline and deadlines for the completion of each of your goals. Without a deadline, you leave the goal up to chance to complete. It must have a hard deadline set so you know when it needs to be completed and so you know if you’ve met your target.
Super Hack
I used to set short term, long term and life goals for myself and if I can be completely honest, most of them were never accomplished. They all seemed so far off in the distant future that it felt like they would never be accomplished.
I don’t know about you but I lose focus really quickly so in order for me to stick with anything, I need to get a quick win. If I don’t get a win within a matter of weeks, I’m discouraged and I give up. So what I did was I turned my year into 12 weeks.
If my year is condensed to 12 week spans of time, I’m able to accomplish a lot more than what most people accomplish within a year’s time and I get massive wins which is a huge boost to my confidence and allows me to stay focused and keep moving towards my goals.
Some people would refer to these 12 week spans as quarters but I personally look at them as my year because it pushes me to do more within these short bursts of time. And it helps so that I don’t feel like I’m dragging the same goal out for a long period of time where I burn out or get bored.
So let’s say I want to make more money in my business and I know that I need to get 10 new clients for the entire year. I’m going to push myself and take massive action so I can achieve that within my 12 week year. This means I’m going to work hard and think of creative ways to achieve that goal within the shortest amoount of time possible. Even if I don’t hit the target, I know that I’ll come close and ust by coming close, it will give me the forward momentum to move into my 2nd 12-week year.
So within a calendar year, I have 4 years worth of goals that I want to achieve which means I’m always working towards something massive and there’s always excitement in my life. And it also means that I’m able to get a lot more done 12 weeks than what most get done in a full year.
It’s not about it being a competition. It’s more about having a purpose and a sense of fulfillment knowing that I’m constantly winning.
If serious about making 2021 your best year ever, if you want to crush some massive goals this year and if you want to achieve your dreams, the things you’re passionate about, I have a program called the Lash Masters Monthly where every month, I teach lash artists like you skills to master your lash application and how to build a profitable lash business using the steps I’ve take to build not one, not two but 3 successful lash businesses.
If you want to join a group of artists that are serious about taking their artistry to higher levels that are there to support you on your lash journey, I encourage you to join. If you’re listening to this on the blog, there’s a link at the bottom of this page to sign up and if you’re watching this online, a little box with the site address will appear somewhere on this page where you can join.
I’d love to see you there.
Thank you so much for watching, for listening and let’s make this an amazing week.