In this Chapter:

• the difference between goals and tasks
• establishing levels of importance
• breaking down goals to achieve results
• creating the habit of achievement.

You can’t DO a goal

Here’s a goal:

Get to the top of Mount Everest.

To achieve this goal, you can’t just get on a plane, fly to Nepal and then start walking!

Goals require thinking about – there are lots of things to think about, and then lots more things to do. This is where many people come unstuck. They have a neatly written goals list, but never seem to achieve any of them. People who use this method – writing down goals and then looking at the list from time to time – rapidly stop bothering to write things down and will tell you ‘Goal setting doesn’t work for me’.

The problem is that you cannot do a goal. It is an outcome that results from many different tasks that you can do. The secret is working through the list and reviewing it constantly.

If you were planning to go to Egypt on holiday with your partner and two children, you certainly wouldn’t just arrive at the nearest airport and expect to get on a plane and then find somewhere to stay when you got there. You’d need to look at travel brochures, perhaps visit a couple of websites that tell you about Egypt and what you can see. You might want to talk to friends who have been there before, or to a travel agent, about health issues, climate, suitable clothes and cultural requirements. There would be a host of other things you would need to find out, so you can make decisions, plan, organize, book and go on holiday confident that you’ve done everything you can to ensure it’s a good one.

Most people do invest quite a lot of time and effort in choosing and planning their holidays – but don’t put anything like as much effort into what they do for the other 50 weeks of the year! This, in effect, means that the holiday is the very top of their priority list out of everything else that they want in life – it’s top priority.

Encourage your staff to think about creating their own goals, and action plans to achieve them, and you’ll be on the way to developing really motivated people.