If properly set, goals will provide true motivational direction and lead to ultimate success, according to the book "Six Sigma for Managers." Personal goal setting starts with having a vision of what you want to accomplish. This vision, if realistic and founded in positive emotion, will drive you to achieve the success that you deserve. This process involves putting first things first, being emotionally ready for success and establishing a clear measurement of your progress toward your desired goals.
Determine Your Most Important Goals
In his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families," Stephen Covey explains that putting the most important things first is essential to achieving your goals, whether in your personal or professional life. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by making a list of the goals that are most important to you, then working toward them in the order of expediency.
Plan for Success
According to "Six Sigma for Managers," no goal will ever be achieved if you don't first plan for success. Goal setting involves developing not only plans based on realistic expectations, but also ones that are founded in strong emotions. The stronger the feeling that you can successfully obtain your goal, the more likely you will obtain it.
Establish Measurement Criteria
"Six Sigma for Managers" explains that you need to create a method by which to measure your progress toward your goal. Effective measurement criteria prevent discouragement. Create a timeline or goal matrix where you can display your daily or weekly progress visually. Measuring your progress helps keep you on track, with your eye focused on achieving your dreams. According to Greg Brue, you should consider an achievement of 60 percent to 80 percent improvement toward your goal as a breakthrough, not as a failure.
Changing Processes
According to "Six Sigma for Managers," the reason goals are not met lies in the false belief of yourself and other people as liabilities and not assets. In business settings, managers often look for people to blame when productivity decreases and goals are not met. This is another way of blaming people for failures, instead of looking deeper into the goal process for problems.
Brue indicates that the focus should be on the processes that are involved in achieving your goals, instead of finding failure in people. Start with thinking about yourself and others as assets and then consider what part of the goal process went wrong. Consider what materials were wasted and what errors could have occurred, based entirely on fact and not assumption or guesses. Then you should begin reworking them with success in mind. Changing your perspective to seeing "human assets" is the key to changing from stagnancy and situational failure to goal achievement and success.
References
- "The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement" 3rd ed.; Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox; 2004
- "I Haven't Saved a Dime, Now What?!"; Barbara Loos; 2001
- "Six Sigma for Managers"; Greg Brue; 2002
- "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families"; Stephen Covey; 1997
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