Goal Setting - Up and up I Go.....

Goal, Aim, Destination etc these all words ring a bell in everyone's mind about some areas to conquer, some heights to achieve. Goals are part of our day-to-day lives. A beggar has a goal to earn every day food, a small kid has a goal of completing his homework so that he can play, parents have goals of rearing their children and to see them happily settled in their lives, an athlete has an ambition to break certain record, a country has the goal to achieve certain GDP and growth, and the list continues.

We all want to progress and achieve impalpable heights but we how do we set goals and how do we achieve  those goals is a question.

Our intrinsic way of approaching towards our Goal is that-
1. First we have a dream or a desire. Like a person may desire to own a big restaurant business. But he is currently unequipped with the proper techniques to do it. So this dream is in a niche stage.

2. Goal Setting - Secondly, he has to transform the dream to a Goal. But what is the difference between  a dream and a goal.
So in words of  Harvey Mackay -
A dream is a just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.

So at this step comes the importance of the process setting SMART Goals.

A Smart Goal for a restaurant owner can be -
S-Specific - 

•                     What kind of restaurant like - Indian, Italian, Continental, Mixed, Buffet or a la carte etc.
•                     What will be the capacity of restaurant.
•                     How will be the interiors.
•                     Which section of society will he serve.

                 
                   
M- Measurable-

•                         How much business per month  is he expecting per day and per month.
•                           How much traffic is he expecting per day.

A- Assignable- 

•                         How many people required to start the business. 
•                         Who will be assigned what task. 

R- Realistic-   

•                         It should not turn out that the goals are set much beyond his budget constraints. 

T- Time Bound-

• The time limits set to achieve such task should be realistic. One cannot expect the business to get started in a blip.

3. Make the plan - 
In order to give a trenchant direction to our goal  its necessary to make a plan.
For example to start the restaurant, the person should make the plan keeping above goals in mind.

4. Implement the plan -
One must inexorable efforts to implement and achieve your goal.
Your actions should be in tandem with the goals set and plan created.

Now the person should follow the following steps to evaluate the goal setting process-
The following graphs depicts 4 important parameters -
A. Potential
B. Goal Set
C. Goal Achieved 
D. Goal History 

                     


Inferences - 

• So this implies that we always have a potential to do more and more. 
• Our Goals set should always be greater than Goal Achieved i.e. that you should always set higher Goals. 

         So you should be a dreamer. Reach for the stars and if you miss one, you grab a handful of Clouds. 

• Our Goal set and Goal achieved should be greater than Goal History i.e you should strive to ameliorate your performance with practice and further moving upwards.

Like in our above example the person who has to start the restaurant business set a goal of -

 Also an important aspect of goal setting process is to keep be optimistic. With due diligence and determination, one can achieve his goals. In the last few lines by Henry David Thoreau -

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.


So keeping in mind the above lines we should keep setting goals and strive to achieve them since after every step we become better than what we were earlier.