Goal Setting Is the Number One Thing That Successful People Do

Transcript

Hi! George Swift here from Bigger Brighter Bolder. Today, I would like to share with you an excerpt from my book, "67 Kick-Arse Philosophies for Small Business Owners".  

I'll share with you the philosophy. Then I'll share with you what I wrote about that philosophy. And then we'll have a little chat about how that relates to you and maybe what you need to do about this learning.  

Page 80 - Goal setting is the number one thing that successful people do. 

They really do, by the way, whether it's sport, industry, business, the music industry - it is the number one thing that successful people do. They set goals, they know where they're going, and they break those goals down and they systematically take the action and take the steps they need to in order to achieve those goals.  

However, ‘Goals are widely known to be the key ingredient in any quest for success. Yet hardly anyone sets them. Of those who do, few do it properly and even fewer do it consistently. It’s not surprising that hardly anyone achieves their goals. 

‘Most of us were never taught how to set goals properly. And sadly, when we do get a book on goal setting or attend a course, it’s often taught in an extreme way. One end of the spectrum being a, ”Yeeha! You can do anything! Take your life and times it by a MILLION!” approach with no genuine structure, strategy or formula. The other end being a, ”Yawwwnnn! Set practical, realistic, SMART goals”. 

‘Both approaches rarely deliver and usually leave people feeling disappointed, frustrated and reluctant to set goals again. There’s very little practical AND inspiring goal setting resource material out there.’ 

I then go on to blow my own trumpet and talk a little bit about how I have created a goal-setting programme for everyone at my Success Groups and how we've created an app that tracks that progress and how it forms, basically, the core of what we do at Success Groups. We wrap everything around our goal setting.  

It is the number one thing that successful people do. And therefore you should be doing it as well.  

However, I will forgive you for not doing it because there are a whole lot of reasons you probably don't do it. Number one, maybe you’ve never really seen the need for it. Maybe you've tried it in the past - you know, that yeeha, 10 x everything, and you failed to achieve a goal and felt a little bit shit about yourself afterwards.  

Or maybe it was that SMART methodology that you were taught in corporate sometime in the past that was never really that inspiring. Never really gave you the kick up the arse to go out there and fight for what you really wanted.  

There are a whole bunch of reasons. Maybe you didn't have the accountability that's required in order to achieve success. Maybe you never really committed to it. Maybe you never had a strategy or plan, or you never really formulated a plan and held yourself accountable to that plan to achieve those goals. Maybe it all seems a little bit like hard work.  

I get it. There are a whole lot of reasons why maybe you wouldn't actually set goals. Maybe you did in the past and maybe you don't now. Maybe you’ve never tried. But the truth of the matter is, goal setting is the number one thing that successful people do. Very rarely do you come across a successful person that doesn't buy into goals or believe in goals.  

And even the people I've seen that speak out against goal setting, when I listen to their psychology and their language, they are still setting goals. They're just not necessarily formalizing that through a strategy or structure that they might think is goal setting. They still have a vision a focus and they have an accountability to achieving that, whether it's with themselves or other people around them.  

So how this really factors into your day-to-day life is, if you're not goal setting, you are missing a huge, huge, huge opportunity for creating success in your business. When you start to set goals, and when you go through a really thorough goal-setting process to really make sure you're setting the right goals and that you're connected to those goals in the right way - with the passion, the purpose that's required in order to see a goal through in the long term - when you set a goal up in that place, you’ll feel heavily, vibrantly connected to that goal. You'll feel highly motivated.  

However, unfortunately, that initial motivation will wane if you don't bring in a structure for maintaining the discipline and the commitment needed in order to fulfil that goal. The bigger the goal, the chances are the longer it's going to take to achieve it, and the more we need to maintain our momentum and our motivation levels throughout the whole journey in order to achieve it.  

For all of us - 1st of January - we'll wake up on that morning, hungover slightly maybe, thinking, this is it. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to join the gym. I'm going to get fit.  

20 days, I think, is the average that a new year's resolution is gone, is dead. It's done and dusted, right? So, 20 days in, the brain that was initially on board saying, “Yeah, man, this is brilliant. I can't wait. Let's get started. I love the idea of being fit and healthy and slim and vibrant…” and whatever else, after a week or two the brain is going, “This is just hard work - nothing's changing. I'm not feeling that reward.”  

The brain never realized it was going to take 12 months to solve, or two years to solve. So the brain very quickly starts to get unmotivated. It gets demoralized and it starts to switch off, a bit like a kid.  

You say, “Hey kids we’re going to Disneyland!”  

They go,  

“Oh my God! When?”  

“Five years from now…”  

Very quickly, they're going to realize this isn't coming anytime soon. And they're going to switch off, right? Your brain does the same thing. (Really, really quickly, by the way.) So you need to make sure that you bring in a methodology for not just setting your goals, but actually sticking to goals.  

In fact, even if you do all your goal setting perfectly, you've only got a 40% chance of achieving your goal, statistically. If you have a plan, a well-thought-out plan for how to achieve that goal, you still only have a 50% chance of achieving that goal.  

You need to commit to that goal publicly - to other people - and you need to be willing to hold yourself accountable and be held accountable to that goal. Then your chances of success go up to 95%. Huge!  

So even when you do all the goal setting perfectly, you still only have a 40% chance of achieving it. Have a plan? 50% chance of achieving it. To get a 90% chance of achieving your goal you need to commit publicly, which is really uncomfortable. Because suddenly you're calling yourself out there a little bit, thinking;  

• Am I really going to see this through?  
• Am I really going to follow up?  
• Am I really going to stick to this?  

• Am I really going to achieve this?  

You start to question yourself and doubt yourself. And that discomfort of committing to other people really gives you an early warning sign that maybe your unconscious isn't as fully on board as you thought it was. It doesn't mean you're not going to set the goal, by the way. It just gives you an early warning so you can start to bring in things to make sure that you do follow through on what you say you're going to do.  

Once you make that commitment to other people, your goal jumps from being a 50/50 chance when it's set well with a plan, to 65% when you make a commitment. So 15% more chance, statistically, of achieving your goal when you make that commitment.  

The big, big gain - the 30% gain - comes from being willing to be held accountable to that goal.  

Now, different people need different types of accountability. If you ever watched The Biggest Loser on TV, for example, some people do respond well to that. You know, Sergeant Major hanging over your shoulder, “You're scum! You're not good enough! Pick yourself up you maggot!” Some people do respond well to that. In my experience, very few people. Their self-esteem can't quite handle that.  

And let's be honest, even for those of us with greater and levels of self-esteem, I don't really want to be bawled out permanently about how shit I am at things. I want to be lifted up and motivated and inspired to do what I need to do whilst getting that little bit of accountability when I let myself down or don't do what I said I was going to do.  

When you're held accountable to the growth of your business - when you're held accountable to doing what you said you were going to do, when you don't allow yourself off the hook, and when you drop the ball, you take full responsibility for that and work out how you get back on it or work out how you get back on track - when you're in that kind of environment, it's an incredibly powerful place. And 95%, which is what the study said, seems about right in our club. Sometimes people drop the ball a little bit. We pick them up, we support them to get them back up there. Some people are there hammering away at a 100% nonstop.  

So if you're not goal setting, you're missing a huge opportunity. I understand if you've had a bad experience in the past. However, do give it another go. And of course my door is always open. Drop me a line, drop us a line, go and check us out at biggerbrighterbolder.co.uk if you want to see what we're doing there.  

Equally, if you want a copy of the book, I'll drop that link in the comments as well. So if you want to go and buy my little book, you are welcome to.  

Either way, do get yourself back on your goal setting. And if you've never tried it before, give it a go. Do it properly. Make sure you're following a decent program.  

If you haven't got one accessible to you, come and talk to us. Look at Success Groups, Bigger Brighter Bolder, because we help, at the moment, 80 plus business owners from start-up to multi millions, doing exactly that thing.  

I'll see you next time.