How The 4 Essentials Impact Goals
Do Written Goals Make Your Mission?
Each year, we write down goals to ensure more fun, good health, and quality time with friends and family. If you run a business, you hope to double your sales, launch new ideas, or enhance customer service. And if you’re adding to a Bucket List, perhaps it’s time for sky diving, an African safari, or exploration of the Galapagos Islands. But statistically, our lofty goals don’t just get done because we “write them down.” Stuff happens and the world doesn’t comply with our To-Do list.
In fact, the notion that written goals lead to success is a bit of a myth, although I’m not suggesting we scrap the practice altogether. I am saying that goals aligned with The 4 Essentials are equally important.
Essential 1 > Analyze Your Basic Skills
Each goal or project presents fresh challenges and opportunities. To get things moving in the right direction, take inventory of skills, strengths, and assets. You’ll also want a separate list of weaknesses and liabilities. Be sure to allow equal input from everyone on your team in order to assign the best person to each role. Skills should not only be evaluated in terms of task-specific experience, but aligned with those who have a passion for learning, creativity, and growth.
Essential 2: Commit to Action Strategies (Skills in Motion)
After analyzing skills, it’s time for result-oriented action. This requires tough decisions that leverage tools, teams, advisors, and resources. Strategies must also consider time, money, and effort (the total budget). Don’t fall into the procrastination trap of so much on your plate that nothing gets done. Intelligent action requires focus so it’s better to do one thing well than leave ten things hanging.
Essential 3: Align Core Values
You either stand for something or no one stands with you. So ask yourself, “Can our friends, co-workers, and clients passionately share our mission?” Is everyone committed to the same core values such as integrity, gratitude. service, excellence, innovation, and contribution? Do you have the humility to acknowledge what you don’t know, aren’t good at, don’t like to do, or don’t have time for? These principles enable us to focus on what we do best so we can delegate, collaborate, or eliminate the rest. Our values must also flow through words, deeds, branding, marketing, social media, and company culture.
Essential 4: Add Accountability to Your Purpose
Be it money, teamwork, learning, making a difference, or just having fun, our purpose (WHY WE DO IT) is the key motivation driver. But even when we align goals with purpose, values, skills, and strategies, the best laid plans can fail. It could be lack of self‐discipline, poor execution, or the wrong team? So your final ingredient for BIG IMPACT on goals is to add ACCOUNTABILITY!
My Top 5 Accountability Rules:
1 Assign a focus sergeant to monitor the mission
2 Create clear assignments, benchmarks, and timelines.
3 Establish rewards and progress reports to keep people motivated.
4 Create contingencies (plan B) if things go wrong.
5 Create consequences if someone quits or fails.
Final Thoughts
Yeh, I snuck in the 5 accountability rules at the end. But it’s worth it! Wishing you much success on your next goal or project! Also see my: 10 Tips for keeping Goals on Track
