Goal Setting: The Starting Point for Business Success
By Wayne Forster
This article was written for Kapital Magazine, (Riga, Latvia), May 2002

Growing up as a child, we used to play a game at birthday parties called “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”. We’d be blindfolded, spun around three times, then pointed in the direction of a poster of a donkey tacked to the wall. And what a laugh everyone would have when we’d miss the target and stick that tail in the most amusing of places. Well, when I see how some businesses are run, it reminds me of the Pin the Tail on the Donkey game. There’s the business owner – blindfolded, spinning in circles, trying to hit a target they can’t see.

Running a business without being able to see the target is like trying to pin the tail on the donkey. If you succeed, it’s “blind luck”. But if you miss the target, it’s not as funny in real life as it is in the party game. To succeed in business, we must be able to see the target. In other words, we must have a clear set of goals.

Let me share with you 12 things that I’ve found are critically important to effectively set goals that lead to business success. Use these as a checklist for your own goal setting process.

1. You must be totally committed to achieving the goal.
My dear late father was a heavy smoker all his life. In fact, he died of lung cancer. For many years, my mother used to say to him, "Stan, you should quit smoking.” And he would always agree with her. "Yeah, yeah, I should," he’d say. But he never did. Why? Because while he knew he probably should quit smoking, he didn’t really want to. He enjoyed smoking. It was never his goal to quit smoking. It was my mother's goal, to be sure, but it was never his.

When we set a goal, we must be sure we are totally committed to achieving that goal. It must be something we really want, not just something someone else tells us we should have. We must have what we call “goal ownership.” Without goal ownership, we will not be motivated to do the things we need to do in order to make it happen. In our businesses, many of our goals require the full effort of our employees in order to achieve them. If our employees do not buy into these goals, they will not have goal ownership. Without goal ownership, they will not be totally committed to achieving them. As a result, their performance may be less than what it needs to be. Why is it that business owners tend to work longer hours and miss fewer workdays than their employees do? Because they have ownership. They are committed to the goals of the business.

2. You must be sure the goal is achievable.
You’ve probably heard someone say that their goal is to get rich by winning a lottery. Winning a lottery is not a goal. It’s certainly possible, but it’s not realistically achievable, given the odds. When we talk about goals, we’re referring to outcomes that are realistic and achievable – not just things that might happen by some fluke of good fortune. A goal is something that we can have an impact upon. We have to be able to say to ourselves, “Yes, I believe I can achieve that goal by my own actions.” If we don’t believe in our own mind that it’s achievable, we will tend to give up at the first sign of difficulty. We must believe we can achieve it.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t set our goals high. Quite the opposite, in fact. It’s amazing what people can achieve once they truly believe it is achievable. The first person to break the four-minute mile was the British runner Roger Bannister, who did it in 1954. Up until that point, no one in recorded history had ever run the mile in under four minutes. In fact, at the time, most people

believed it was physically impossible for a human being to run a mile in under four minutes. But before the year was out, no fewer than twelve runners had also broken the four-minute mile! It had been as much a psychological barrier as a physical one. Once that barrier had been broken in people’s minds by Bannister’s feat, the floodgates opened.

3. You must ensure the goal is specific and measurable.
When I ask business owners to tell me what their goals are, I’ll frequently get this response. “I want to increase my sales.” So I say to them, “Okay, so if you increase your sales by one dollar,
you’re happy?” “Oh, no!” they counter, “I want to do better than that.” Then I say, “Well, how much?” They’ll reply, “Well, I don’t know, I just want a good increase.” “Not good enough,” I tell them, “Give me a specific figure!” To be of any benefit at all, goals must be specific. If they’re too vague, the target is not clear enough. If the target is unclear, it’s going to be difficult to hit. Be specific with your goals. Give numbers, figures, amounts, detailed descriptions – anything that will clarify exactly what it is you’re trying to achieve. Your goals must also be measurable in some way. Goals that get measured are goals that get accomplished. If a goal is not measurable, how do you know when you’ve achieved it?

4. You must write the goal down.
Putting your goal in writing does a couple of things. For one, it forces you to be specific. In order to write it down, you must select specific words to describe it. That causes you to think it through and decide exactly what it is that you want to accomplish. Secondly, when you write the goal down

it suddenly becomes more real to you. There it is, in black and white! It’s also a good practice to show your written goal to another person – an employee, a business colleague, a family member. When we share it with someone else, it becomes even more real. Besides, now we’re committed! We’ve told someone else, so there’s no turning back!

5. You must determine how you will benefit.
Achieving your goal with not be easy. You will need to be sufficiently motivated to put in the effort and overcome the difficulties you will face. Every human being is motivated by an expectation of personal benefit. How will achieving your goal benefit you? Will it mean an increase in income? Will it enable you to buy a new house? Will it give you the recognition of your peers that is so important to you? Will it give you personal satisfaction? Will it mean you can spend more time with your family? Different people are motivated by different benefits. You need to be able to identify how achieving your goals will benefit you. If you can’t see the benefits, you won’t be motivated enough to achieve the goal.

6. You must set a deadline.
When I started my own business more than ten years ago, a friend of mine said to me, “You know, I’m going to start my own business too, one of these days.” Well, “one of these days” never came. My friend is still working for someone else, hating every minute, and counting the days till retirement. Not for me, thanks! When you set a goal, establish a deadline for achieving that goal. This will put a little time pressure on you to get it done. Without a deadline, it’s too easy to put it off. Make your deadline realistic, but challenging. And if you have to change it because of unforeseen circumstances, that’s fine. Just establish another deadline.

7. You must identify the sacrifices you will have to make.
Despite our attempts at times to prove otherwise, we are not “superwomen” or “supermen.” We are only human. We can’t do it all. If we try, something always suffers. In order to achieve a goal, we will be required to make choices about how we allocate our time, energy and resources. Invariably, we’ll have to make some sacrifices. Will it mean sacrificing leisure time? Will it mean sacrificing financial security to invest our savings in a new venture? Will it mean sacrificing time with our family? Try to identify in advance what sacrifices you'll have to make. Are you prepared to make these sacrifices? If not, perhaps you should change your goal.

8. You must identify the resources you will need.
Achieving goals will require various resources. These could include money, equipment, people, information or time. Identify in advance what resources you will need, then develop a plan for pulling these resources together. For example, if you determine that achieving your goal will require more knowledge of a particular subject, you may have to take a university course or enroll in a training program. If you fail to identify needed resources in advance, you may begin working on your goal then realize you don’t have the resources to accomplish it. This exercise is also a good test of how realistic your goal is. If you discover that achieving your goal will require more money than you could possibly come up with, perhaps the goal is unrealistic and needs to be adjusted. At the very least, it will alert you to the fact that you need to raise more money before you attempt to achieve it.

9. You must identify the people whose help you will need.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my business, it’s the truth of the following statement. “No one succeeds in life without the help of others – and no one should be afraid to ask for help.” In order to achieve your goals, you will need the help of other people. These people could include business partners, colleagues, suppliers, experts, mentors, teachers, friends, relatives, your children, or your spouse. Identify whose help you will need and specifically what you will need from them. Perhaps you will need money. Perhaps you will need information. Perhaps you’ll need a sales referral. Perhaps you’ll need moral support. Perhaps you’ll need someone to put their own goals on hold to help you achieve yours. And don’t be afraid to ask. Human beings have an innate need to help others. We like to be asked for help.

10. You must visualize the goal.
There's an expression that goes, "If you can see it, then you can do it". Visualization is a powerful tool for helping us achieve our goals. I’ve discovered that successful people seem to have this ability – to visualize themselves achieving a goal in their own mind before actually achieving it. Have you ever watched a high jumper prepare to make a jump? You can actually see them walking off each step with their eyes, visualizing the entire jump before they even begin to approach the bar. I vividly remember a television interview with the famous Russian gymnast Olga Korbet when she won an Olympic gold medal in 1972. She attributed her winning performance to the fact that she had seen herself perform her entire routine flawlessly in her mind the night before. When she found herself in the actual competition, it was like she had been there before. That “familiarity” gave her the edge she needed. But visualization is not only used by athletes. Architects use it when they design a building. Fashion designers use it when then create a new

line of clothing. Carpenters use it when they build a set of kitchen cabinets. Speakers use it when they make a presentation. Salespeople use it when they attempt to close a deal. You too can use it to achieve your goal. Try to see yourself achieving it. What does it look like? How good does it make you feel? If you can see it, you can make it happen!

11. You must make a plan, then work the plan.
A goal will not achieve itself. You must take action. A plan identifies the specific actions you must take. These actions are like steps on a staircase that lead you to your destination. Your plan should also identify time frames for reaching each step towards your goal. Once you develop your plan, the path to the goal becomes clearer. You now begin to see exactly how you are going to get there. Without a plan, your goal may seem more like a dream floating in the distance. Once you develop the plan, work it. It becomes the blueprint guiding your day-to-day activities.

12. You must persist, persist, persist.
Finally, we have to be persistent. Success will not come easy. There will be setbacks along the way. We will run into obstacles in our path. We will begin to doubt ourselves and our abilities. But if the goal is worth achieving, it’s worth fighting for. We don’t give up; we persist. It becomes what we call our “magnificent obsession.” We concentrate our thoughts, energies and resources to make it happen. So often, just when we think we’ll never achieve it, we get the breakthrough we need. What would have happened if we had given up?

In summary, goals give us direction. They help us choose which way to go – which road to take. They keep us focused. When faced with a task, we can ask ourselves, “Does this task help me

achieve my goal?” If it does, then it’s important. If it doesn’t, then don’t waste your time on it. Without goals, we have no effective method of assessing the importance of a task. Without goals, in fact, it doesn’t really much matter what we do. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

© Wayne Forster 2002

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