Goal Setting

There are many people in the world for whom success is like a baby step. Each and every time they complete the level of success one by one. On the other side, there are many people who are smart and hardworking but they never touch the Pinnacle as they want to be. We all see such type of people. Have you ever thought what is the reason why only some people get the success? Are they from another planet? Are they eating other things which we are not? One of the most basic prerequisite to be successful is Goal Setting. You can check yourself, how many times you set a goal in your life. Either in your personal or professional life. Many people know that Goal setting is better but they never implement it because they don’t know how to set the goal and how to achieve it. Let’s understand the process.

First and foremost, let’s understand what is Goal? ‘A goal is specific plan or action to achieve the Target’. Why goals are important?

n  Goals provide direction

n  Goals tell you how far you have traveled

n  Goals help to make the overall vision attainable

n  Goals give people something to strive for.

Now, let’s see how to achieve your Goal?

1. Start Dreaming:

“Dream is not the thing you see while sleep but it is the thing that doesn't let you sleep.” – A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM.

Visualize yourself attaining your stated goal is the first most important thing. Best example for this situation is Mr. Sachin Tendulkar.  In one of his interview, he had mentioned that in 2010, he was supposed to take retirement from cricket. At that time his brother told him, don’t take decision in urgency. Think twice. Your dream is to lift the world cup trophy and next year, i.e., 2011, final is at wankhade stadium, your dream will become true. From that day, Sachin had started dreaming for his goal and rest is history. If you can dream it, you can make it happen!

So, don’t just think, start dreaming.

Visualize the complete goal, like,

ü  See the new office,

ü  Visualize your visiting card,

ü  Feel the salary cheque in your hand,

ü  Then each night, right before you go to bed, repeat the process.

2. Run your own Race:

Make sure that the goal you are working for is something you really want to achieve not what your friend or your family wants to achieve. Generally as a human what our mind set is to copy each and every thing from our surrounding area. If you want to check then ask any student, what he wants to become, if someone from his family member is doctor then he wants to become a doctor, Police then he wants to become a Policeman. He doesn’t know what he actually wants to become. Lot of people spend their entire life trying to achieve other’s goal & expectations. So, it’s better to run your own race instead of others.

3.Don't just think, Ink it.

Many people have a habit that I am so clever all things I stored in my memory. That is a good thing that they have a sharp memory. But a written goal is much more likely to be attained than an unwritten goal! There was a survey in Harvard Business School – MBA students asked about their clear written goals for their future –

o   3% students had written goals plan, (earnings 10 times compare to 97 %)

o   13 % students had clear goal but not in written &, (earnings twice compare to 84 %)

o   84 % students had no clear goal.(Earnings on an avg.)

4 Be Positive.

Write your goals in positive instead of the negative. In writing your goals, we create a set of instruction for our subconscious mind to carry out. The more positive instruction you give it, the more positive result you will get. There is a saying that “if you sincerely want to achieve that something the whole universe strives to achieve that.”

5. Find Inspiration

Inspiration is necessary in Goal Setting. How we can motivate all the time till the goal achieved. Identify what motivates you. Fill your day with motivating things.  If you want to become a runner then find out your inspiration and make sure, you heard his/her name or will see the photo frequently. So that will help you to motivate.

6.Set SMART Goals

Your Goal should be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

• Specific – write your goal in complete detail. Instead of writing    ‘A new job’, write ‘ A job in Marketing ’

• Measurable - Instead of writing ‘A new job’, write ‘ A job in Marketing  where I will earn monthly Rs.20000’

• Achievable- if your work experience is in the marketing then you cannot get the job in Technical. Make sure that your goal is high enough. Shoot for the moon; if you miss you will still be in the stars. But take care that your goal is Achievable

• Realistic – If you are sales manager then you cannot become a Country Sales Head in a short time.

• Timely – one should put a dead line. Instead of writing    ‘A new job’, write ‘A job in Marketing where I will become a regional Sales Manager in a year. ’

7. Identify Obstacles.

Find out Obstacles which will halt you to achieve your goal. List out all obstacles and try to find out a solution for it.

                     i.        Time

                    ii.        Motivation

                   iii.        Facilities

                  iv.        Fear of Failure

                    v.        Fear of Rejection

                  vi.        No daily plan

                 vii.        They don’t know How

                viii.        They think Goals aren’t Important

8. Create positive pressure on you.

Write down your SMART Goals. The more focused you are on your goals, the more likely you will accomplish them. Reviewing your goal on a daily basis is a crucial part of your success. E.g, There was a boy who wants to help his parents as his brother’s marriage was approaching in the next year. So he had decided to give Rs 100000 cheque to his mother. He had started dreaming and also made desktop reminder on his cell phone which reminded him each and every time as well as also set a mechanism of auto sms to his mobile from Google account which is free of cost. So, in this way he had started to achieve his goal. His deadline was 31.12.2010 and he achieved it before 1 month. Just think how positive pressure will help you. You can write it in your personal diary also but in this case, that boy thought out of the box and set a desktop reminder and achieved his Goal. Do you want to meet that Boy? He is none other than, writing this article, ”Rahul Revne”.

9.Divide your Target

If you are a Business man, you set your target that my turnover should be X million by the end of this financial year. You are in the business in the long time. So, you are very well aware about your monthly sales. In which month sales will be high or low. Divide your target from yearly to quarterly and from quarterly to monthly. Write down your sales target for each month and also mention your action plan, how to achieve it. At the end of the year, check your progress. It may be possible that you achieved 90% or 110% from your target. Whatever the status may be, celebrate your success.

10. Set Performance Goal

Rahul Dravid is the best example of this. In many interviews, Dravid says that he has set performance as well as result goals for himself but believes that performance goal works better for him because result is not always in his control. Even if I set a result goal of scoring a century, I could get out to a bad decision or really a good ball or may be score 95, which still means I haven’t reached my goal. Performance goals are far more realistic, achievable and often set the stress out of the result. So, if you continuously achieve performance goals, you invariably end up achieving a result goal.

11. Fix Deadline

There are certain things in life that you want to accomplish or milestone that you want to achieve. Now just ask this question to yourself. We all have a dream to buy a car, flat but when, on which date, which colour, god knows. Fix a deadline and just go ahead and do them. The moment you put a deadline on your dream, it becomes a goal. You will also enjoy achieving that goal.

Where Goal Setting can be wrong ?

• More Than 3 to 4 goals at a time:
• One can work on maximum 3 to 4 goals at a time. Generally what people are doing, they try to work on more than 3-4 goals at a time.
• When goals are unrealistic:
• For example, becoming a company CEO immediately after graduation is an unrealistic goal.
• Goals that are 'beyond' your control:
• For example, winning the lottery is definitely beyond your control.
• When goals are unclear:
• For example," becoming successful" or "becoming a better student" are not clear goals to work toward.

Do’s &and Don’t for Goal Setting

Do’s	Don’ts
Visualize your desired outcome	Go into your goal with a negative attitude
Write down your course of action in an easy step-by-step format that can be checked off with each achievement	Try to memorize all the steps as most will be forgotten
Think positive all the time	Don’t think negative.
Be realistic in your setting your goals.	Set your goals too high to achieve them

Last but not least, when you set the Goal, you should live your life as a true lover. We always see in the movies or in the surrounding areas, what are the situations of true lovers, let’s understand with the poem.

The cold breeze tickles my skin

Eyes filled with freshness and heart feels cold

Thunder is surrounding, waves are approaching

But everywhere I see her…I see her...I see her...

On a full moon day her illusion appears,

And her eyes appear in the sparkling stars,

And her laughter echos in gentle flow of stream

But everywhere I see ...I see her...I see her....

Though we are miles and miles away from each other

But our hearts are one

Though she is not seen by me,

Yet everywhere I see ...I see her...I see her…

-      Rahul Revne

So, enjoy the process of goal setting with,

o  Write your own goal

• Run your own race
• Don’t just think it, ink it.
• Be positive
• Find inspiration
• Set SMART goals
• Identify Obstacles.
• Create a positive pressure – review your goal everyday
• Divide your target
• Set performance
• Fix deadline

Once you believe that you deserve success and are solely responsible for the type of life you create, you are

    “UNSTOPPABLE!!!!!!!!”

Some Habits of highly effective Entrepreneurs

At one juncture in life that we all go through, we have to take the most important decision of life which is – “What do I want to become”

Sometimes, some thoughts have been inculcating in us, like “Study well, so you will get a good job or some said, “Study well, as you are going to be a creator job in future.

From childhood, many people  have a clear vision, Some like to teach, So they dream to be a Teacher, some like to serve the poor people or they show their interest in medicines, So, they choose to become Doctors, while some want to live their dream life, So they decide that they want to become an entrepreneur.

Previously I was working as a Business Consultant, during that period, I used to meet many entrepreneurs, directly or indirectly I asked them how/why they started their business?

The responses I got mostly consisted of answers such as “for not having to report to anyone”, “to be independent”, “to follow my dreams”, “to work as per my time”, “to make more money”, “to have free time with family”, “to support father in business” etc., I was not satisfied with their answers. If you don’t have  a clear goal then how you expect your future will be better. This is the reason why many entrepreneurs miss the bus and their business will not reach up to the Pinnacle.

Every coin has two sides in the same way entrepreneurs also have the two sides.

1) Successful Entrepreneurs,

2) Unsuccessful Entrepreneurs.

As a human being we all loves success stories like, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc., but the fact is -these people have also faced the failure during their success journey. We all get inspiration from Success stories, and never try to learn from failure. So, today we will see some habits of highly effective entrepreneurs with the help of the life of my favorite cricketers

1) SachinTedulkar, 2) Rahul Dravid and 3) MS Dhoni

v “Failure” is a part of the life:

Everyone wants to taste “Success”, but without failure it is not possible. We all are very well aware about one of the best seller book “You Can win”. Another side of the coin is that author of that book Mr. Shiv Khera also tasted the failure when he stood in election. What do you think, he didn’t read his book, “you can win”.

It’s not possible that when we go on our bike every time we get Green light on as Signal. Sometimes we find red light also. So we have to stop and wait for the Green Light. Same thing is applicable in Business also, sometimes we find failure. Remember one thing “Failure” is temporary.

“It’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.” - ZigZiglar

Sachin Tendulkar started his ODI career with 2 ducks but that did not budge his determination. Many times he met with injuries in his cricket life as well as heard some criticism, but still he was standing. You might see a few failures at the start or during the journey, but that must not deter your goals.

You can find any successful business personalities; they already knew that “Failure” is the Part of their life. You can’t create a history with each and every film. Some films create History and some Miseries.

Accept the truth that “Failure” will come. So, don’t be tense, don’t take any  worse decision. Wait until Red Light turns to Green Light

v Lifelong Learning:

In the initial phase of his career, Rahul Dravid was never considered to be a suitable ODI player. He was in and out of the ODI squad for the first few years. But he did not give up and started concentrating on his weak areas. Eventually he emerged as one of the highest run getter in cricket history. Similarly, as an entrepreneur, you’ll be required to learn new skills. You may be able to run your business with old concept but it is very tough to survive.

As an entrepreneur, we all have the habit of giving reasons instead of performing for result. Someone nicely said that either we have the reason or result. We always hide our failures with reasons like, very high competition, employee turnover ratio, lack of skilled manpower, lack of finance etc., it’s better to find solution.

Many entrepreneurs always show their eagerness for the readiness to learn, as business is changing so fast. It’s very tough to sustain your business as well as Customers. So, try to learn new things which we don’t have as an entrepreneur because without learning you can’t earn.

v Decision Making Skills:

To make a decision quickly and effectively is one of the big qualities that Dhoni has. One of the best examples was to make Rohit Sharma bat as an opener in Champions Trophy. Rohit Sharma who was struggling with his form and had played in the middle order was asked to open. After changing the batting position, Rohit Sharma emerged as a finest player hitting two double centuries in One Day International which is a World Record. And another decision was final over in T20 world cup by Joginder Sharma instead of experienced Harbhajan Sigh, and rest is history.

As far as Entrepreneurship is concerned, Right decision at right time is most important. Which location is good, which product we can stop to promote, how to hire a good employee, how to crack a right deal and many more. Each thing, itself is a wide subject but the main thing is to take the right decision at the right time for the betterment of the company.

v Make/ Find out  your substitute:

Another good quality of Dhoni is that, as he found Virat Kohli is ready to take his position, he quit from his position and gave it to Virat Kohli. Same is applicable in Business also many times business is shut down due to Entrepreneur. Plz. Remember one thing, your business should run with its brand name and not with your name. Many people don’t know the owner of KFC, McDonald, Pepsi or Indian Brand likes, Big  Bazaar, Central Mall, SOSYO etc.
So, moral of the story is, Brand should live as long as possible, with entrepreneur or without entrepreneur.

Let’s come to conclusion with following diagram

These are some skills, which are essential for any entrepreneur. Nobody is saying being an entrepreneur is an easy thing to do.

a.   You should accept that “Failure” is a part of the life, with temporary timeline. Wait for the right opportunity. So, you can move to the next level.

b.     “Failure is success if we learn from it.”

- Malcolm Forbes

We should learn from failure of ours as well as others. A good entrepreneur is that who learn from other’s mistakes. For that, you can do a small steps that at least you can start the habit of reading Business books, Entrepreneur’s stories. It will teach you some great lessons of failures and how to find out the solutions.

c.  In a day to day business activity, you have to make decision fast for the betterment of the company. Understand the situation and take decision accordingly. Well prepared decisions are easier to make and to implement, and generally produce the best results.

d.     If you will go to start or have already started the business then make sure, your business will run as much as it can with its brand name. If you will not come for next 10 -15 business days then also your business will run smoothly. So, find out your substitute for that.

These qualities will not translate into automatic success, but they will surely help you to achieve it and bring excellence.