Today is December 1.  We’re getting to the end of 2011.  It’s time to begin setting goals for 2012.  Goals are important if you want to become the life and career success you deserve to be.  I came across a quote on the importance of goals from Robert Heinlein, the great science fiction writer, the other day.

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.”

I like this career advice.  It makes a great point.  Too many people confuse activity – or daily trivia – with accomplishment.  Mr. Heinlein points out that our activity needs to be focused by our goals.

Tweet 23 in my career advice book Success Tweets addresses this point.  “Goals are important.  You can’t get where you want if you don’t know where you are going.”

I once saw a succinct statement on goal setting and goal achievement from Denis Waitley…

“The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we’ve already achieved them.”

I really like what Denis has to say.  Let’s break it down.

1. Your goals need to be clear.
2. Your goals need to be written.
3. You need to focus on your goals several times a day.
4. You need to visualize yourself achieving your goals.

Clear goals follow the S.M.A.R.T. formula.  They are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.  Do your goals pass the S.M.A.R.T. test?  If you’ve written them, it should be pretty easy to review them to see.

Here’s a goal that one of my friends shared with me recently.

To become a millionaire, selling products on the Internet.

Let’s see how well it stacks up to the S.M.A.R.T. test.

Specific? Reasonably so.  This guy wants to become a millionaire by selling products on the Internet.  This goal would be more specific if he had specified the product or type of product he wants to sell, and if he is going to develop the product himself, or resell others’ products.

Measurable? Overall yes, if he defines being a millionaire as having a net worth of over a million dollars.

Achievable? Probably.  He’s a smart guy who has the desire.  And, he is committed to this goal.  I think he can achieve it if he works hard and smart.

Relevant? For him, yes.  The guy defines success in monetary terms, so becoming a millionaire is certainly a relevant goal for him.

Time Bound? No.  He hasn’t set a date by when his net worth will reach one million dollars.

Not bad for a first try.  Here’s how I would make this goal more S.M.A.R.T…

To build a net worth of $1,000,000 by the time I am 40 by being an Internet super affiliate marketer, reselling products in the self-help field.

Specific?  Very.  Net worth of $1,000,000; Internet affiliate marketer; reselling self-help products.

Measurable? Yes.  He can check his net worth on his 40th birthday.

Achievable? Likely, given some hard work and tenacity.

Relevant? Yes.  Money is how he defines success.

Time Bound? Yes.  His 40th birthday is a hard deadline.

Take some time to review your goals.  Make them S.M.A.R.T.  S.M.A.R.T. goals are written and clear – the first two recommendations from Denis Waitley when it comes to accomplishing your goals.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people set and achieve high goals.  They understand the power of Tweet 23 in Success Tweets.  “Goals are important.  You can’t get what you want if you don’t know where you’re going.”  You can get a head start on 2012 by beginning your goal setting process now. Written goals are the first step when it comes to life and career success.  Sharpening your goals until they are clear and concise is the second step.  If you don’t have written goals for 201 get started tonight.  Then check what you’ve written against the S.M.A.R.T. criteria.  Make sure your goals are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.  If you take just these two steps you’ll be well ahead in the career success game.

That’s my career advice, inspired by Robert Heinlein’s thoughts on goal setting.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Today is December 1.  We’re getting to the end of 2011.  It’s time to begin setting goals for 2012.  Goals are important if you want to become the life and career success you deserve to be.  I came across a quote on the importance of goals from Robert Heinlein, the great science fiction writer, the other day.

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.”

I like this career advice.  It makes a great point.  Too many people confuse activity – or daily trivia – with accomplishment.  Mr. Heinlein points out that our activity needs to be focused by our goals.

Tweet 23 in my career advice book Success Tweets addresses this point.  “Goals are important.  You can’t get where you want if you don’t know where you are going.”

I once saw a succinct statement on goal setting and goal achievement from Denis Waitley…

“The secret to productive goal setting is in establishing clearly defined goals, writing them down and then focusing on them several times a day with words, pictures and emotions as if we’ve already achieved them.”

I really like what Denis has to say.  Let’s break it down.

1. Your goals need to be clear.
2. Your goals need to be written.
3. You need to focus on your goals several times a day.
4. You need to visualize yourself achieving your goals.

Clear goals follow the S.M.A.R.T. formula.  They are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.  Do your goals pass the S.M.A.R.T. test?  If you’ve written them, it should be pretty easy to review them to see.

Here’s a goal that one of my friends shared with me recently.

To become a millionaire, selling products on the Internet.

Let’s see how well it stacks up to the S.M.A.R.T. test.

Specific? Reasonably so.  This guy wants to become a millionaire by selling products on the Internet.  This goal would be more specific if he had specified the product or type of product he wants to sell, and if he is going to develop the product himself, or resell others’ products.

Measurable? Overall yes, if he defines being a millionaire as having a net worth of over a million dollars.

Achievable? Probably.  He’s a smart guy who has the desire.  And, he is committed to this goal.  I think he can achieve it if he works hard and smart.

Relevant? For him, yes.  The guy defines success in monetary terms, so becoming a millionaire is certainly a relevant goal for him.

Time Bound? No.  He hasn’t set a date by when his net worth will reach one million dollars.

Not bad for a first try.  Here’s how I would make this goal more S.M.A.R.T…

To build a net worth of $1,000,000 by the time I am 40 by being an Internet super affiliate marketer, reselling products in the self-help field.

Specific?  Very.  Net worth of $1,000,000; Internet affiliate marketer; reselling self-help products.

Measurable? Yes.  He can check his net worth on his 40th birthday.

Achievable? Likely, given some hard work and tenacity.

Relevant? Yes.  Money is how he defines success.

Time Bound? Yes.  His 40th birthday is a hard deadline.

Take some time to review your goals.  Make them S.M.A.R.T.  S.M.A.R.T. goals are written and clear – the first two recommendations from Denis Waitley when it comes to accomplishing your goals.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people set and achieve high goals.  They understand the power of Tweet 23 in Success Tweets.  “Goals are important.  You can’t get what you want if you don’t know where you’re going.”  You can get a head start on 2012 by beginning your goal setting process now. Written goals are the first step when it comes to life and career success.  Sharpening your goals until they are clear and concise is the second step.  If you don’t have written goals for 201 get started tonight.  Then check what you’ve written against the S.M.A.R.T. criteria.  Make sure your goals are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.  If you take just these two steps you’ll be well ahead in the career success game.

That’s my career advice, inspired by Robert Heinlein’s thoughts on goal setting.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

I want to begin this post by apologizing.  Due to a software glitch, I have not been receiving the thoughtful comments many of you have posted to this blog.  This has been going on for the past six months or so.  I was wondering where all the comments had gone.  That glitch is fixed now.  Yesterday I found almost a hundred comments which I had not read, and to which I had not responded.  I spent a couple of hours reading and responding to them.  I believe the software problem is fixed now and this won’t happen again.  I really value all of the comments I receive.  I appreciate you taking the time to write them.  I promise to respond to them in a timely manner in the future.

On to today’s post — a continuation of the series further explaining the ideas in my new book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I am giving away the eBook version of this book to promote my career success coach business.  My goal is to giveaway 10,000 eBooks by the end of June 2010.  If you would like a copy, go to www.SuccessTweets.com.  Feel free to send your friends there too.

I am on to the second section of the book and the second C of Success: Commitment.  Today, I am focusing on Tweet 22…

Set and achieve S.M.A.R.T. goals.  S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.

Outstanding performance and life and career success begin with S.M.A.R.T. goals. Let’s look at the S.M.A.R.T. goal criteria

Specific – Your goals should be targeted, nor broad and general. They should be unambiguous and explicit.
 
Measurable – You should be able to tell quickly and easily if you’ve met your goal. Develop a set of criteria that will be indicative of success or failure in meeting each of your goals.

Achievable – Set goals that are challenging but not incredibly difficult to achieve. A challenging goal is motivating, an impossible one is demotivating.

Relevant – Set goals that are related to your purpose and direction in life.  Your goals need to be consistent with your life purpose – your mission.  Goals are stepping stones to making your vision of your career success a reality. 

Time Specified – Set deadlines for achieving your goals. Well developed goals come with time limits.

Once you have developed a set of S.M.A.R.T. goals, you need to work them. Here are some ideas for accomplishing your goals and becoming the life and career success you deserve to be.

Write your goals. People who take the time to write their goals accomplish them more frequently that people who don’t.

Keep your goals with you – in your wallet, on a clipboard, on your screen saver. In this way, they’ll be a constant reminder of what you are going to achieve.

List at least one reason you want to achieve each goal. These reasons will help you stay focused when you get tired and frustrated and begin asking yourself questions like, “Why am I working so hard on this?”

Share your goals with people with whom you are close. These folks can be a big help in achieving your goals. Goals become more real when you share them with others. Goals that you don’t share are merely aspirations.

Talk about your goals at social and networking functions. The help you need to achieve one or more of your goals can come from some surprising places. You never know who might be the one person who can offer the assistance it takes for you to get over the top on one or more of your goals.

Focus on your goals several times a day. Ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing right now helping me achieve one of my goals?”  If the answer is no, stop what you’re doing and do something that will help you reach your goals.

Stay balanced by creating goals in all areas of your life: career, business, personal, family, hobbies, health. These goals will help guide you to where you want to go.

Have congruent goals. Make sure your goals are congruent with one another. Conflicting goals create undue stress. If you have a work or career goal that is going to take up 60 to 80 hours a week of your time, it will be pretty difficult to realize a goal of running a marathon. You simply won’t have time to train.

Consider the sacrifices – what you might have to forego or give up in order to reach your goals. This could be things like family or hobby time. Ask yourself questions like, “Is this goal important enough for me to give up time with my kids or my weekly yoga class?”

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people follow the advice in Tweet 22 in Success Tweets.  “Set and achieve S.M.A.R.T. goals.  S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound.”  Once you set S.M.A.R.T. goals, work them.  Focus on them.  Do whatever it takes to achieve them.  Setting and achieving S.M.A.R.T. goals is some of my best career advice.  I hope you take it to hear.

That’s my take on Tweet 22 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute and leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud