FACT: Setting and completing strategic goals helps your business grow. 

One of the biggest struggles I see with my clients is the inability to move these goals from concept to implementation consistently.

Sometimes they easily complete the goals.

Other times, the goal languishes month after month after month.

So – what is the difference?

According to a recent study from the American Society of Training and Development on goal completion, there is: 

  • 10% probability of accomplishing your goal if you have an idea
  • 25% probability if you consciously decide, “I’m going to do this”
  • 40% probability if you decide on a completion date
  • 50% probability if you have a plan for how you’re going to do it
  • 65% probability of completion when you commit to someone else
  • 95% probability when you do all of the above and set an appointment with the person you committed to

I notice my clients struggle most with one of these two areas:

  • Creating a plan to complete the goal or project
  • Setting an appointment to check back in with the person they have decided to be accountable to

CREATING THE PLAN

When you create your plan to accomplish your goal, you want to focus on two areas. 

  • Break your goal or project into small steps 
  • Set dates and checkpoints for those steps.

SMALL STEPS

Once you have a strategic goal in mind, break it into the smallest action steps possible.  Ideally, each of these steps takes 15 minutes or less. 

One of my clients was creating a new income stream, including an online course that helped recent college graduates interview for a job.

First, she broke the project into big chunks:

  • Overall content
  • Scripts
  • Videos
  • Supplemental Materials
  • Marketing
  • Technology

Then she broke each of these into smaller segments (a few shown below)

SET DATES

Now that your goal has been broken down into small steps, you must take time to block it.

  • Estimate how long each section will take.  
  • Then, assign a completion date to each action step. 
  • Finally, put the work blocks into your calendar to ensure you have the time devoted each day to accomplish the task.

Here’s a snippet of what this looked like for my client. 

She broke her goal into actionable steps, set realistic time frames for the completion of each step, and devoted time in her calendar. She was halfway there…she had a plan!

Now, the challenge becomes following the plan. Just because you have time in your calendar blocked off to work on your project doesn’t mean you’ll actually DO the work. Time-sensitive activities can come up each day, making you want to push your work block to the next day.

The good news is, as my client was working on this project, we were actively working together, which meant I could act as her accountability partner. Remember, according to the research, you have a 65% probability of completion when you commit to someone else and a 95% probability when you set an appointment with the person you committed to. Our coaching sessions served as this structure. 

But what if you aren’t currently working one-on-one with a coach? 

That’s where the Impactive Thinking Club comes in. This group of motivated, successful, awesome professionals can serve as your accountability group.

We meet 1 day each quarter to work on our strategic goals, support each other, and hold each other accountable as we grow.  Click below for more information. 

Join the Club!