Freeing Executive Coaches to Have More Clients and Better Work/Life Balance!
Like many, your New Year’s resolutions have probably been made and broken at least once in the first week. Most of us make our personal resolutions or set our business goals as big picture ideas like “I want to increase my client base” or “I want to get more organized.” At this point, a goal isn’t actually a “goal” yet, it’s a dream…a desire…and, while it may be a deeply desired dream, we probably haven’t applied much of a measure of intention to it.
Napoleon Hill defined a goal as a “dream with a deadline.” Assigning a realistic date to your dream(s) brings it into the realm of possible and stirs the mind to the question…”Okay, now what do I have to do to make this happen?”
Now that you’ve set a “fait accompli” date, let’s take a look at the goal itself. A goal of “I want to increase my client base” works, but it isn’t clear if you’ll consider that goal met with one more client or 100. A goal needs to be more specific than general.
Example: I want to increase my client base by 30% by June 2012
Once you have defined exactly what it is you want to succeed at and by when, there are a few additional questions that should be asked to test the achieve-ability of your goal.
1. How will you know that you’ve reached your goal? Will it be measurable? What measurement tools will you use to know how you’re doing?
2. I s this a realistic goal? Is a 30% increase in clients in this time frame reasonable in your industry?
3. Do you anticipate any external blocking issues (i.e. money, time, location, responsibilities, etc.) that will require additional time to remove, necessitating a push-out of your goal date?
Now that you’ve transformed your dream into a specific goal with a specific deadline attached and gave it a reality check, you’ve taken the very best and first step towards success. Join me for my next post, where I’ll begin a series on the “1-Question” method of bringing your goal to reality.
Have you set any new goals for 2012 and, if so, how specific did you get in defining it?
Sue
Sue Peel is an expert Virtual Assistant, and the founder of Affinity Virtual Assistance LLC, affectionately known as TheAffinityVA. With over 30years of experience in the executive care industry, Sue founded TheAffinityVA in 2005 to use her extensive array of executive administrative experiences and skills to improve the businesses of her virtually-based clients. Sue specializes in providing support and services to professional executive/business coaches. Sue can be reached by email at speel@affinityva.com. Visit http://www.affinityva.com.
