Set Goals For Your Business That You Can Actually Achieve

When it comes to creating a successful business, I believe that goal setting is crucial.

Whether you are the CEO of a multinational company or solo-owner of a service-based business, you should create and set goals and objectives with instructions on how you will achieve them. I like to think of goals like the fuel to a flame that can boost your efforts and achieve higher results.

For my own business, there have certainly been times when I’ve created and launched something on the fly, but usually without the proper goal setting in place, generally I end up creating something that I didn’t enjoy working on or my success fell flat because I had no clear focus point or reward to reach. And this doesn’t only apply to business. It can also apply to personal goals too.

Setting S.M.A.R.T Goals

So you may have heard of it before, but the strategy I use is the SMART goals formula. But just in case if you've never heard of it before (or just need a refresher), a SMART goal is a way of setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely.

Hence the acronym SMART!

Let’s go through each step of the process now with this example:

Let's say you have a goal to book a client.

Specific

The very first thing you want to do is ensure your goal is specific. SO when you are listing out your goal, try to be specific about what you’re trying to do.

For example, your initial goal is “book a client” but what you want to be thinking instead is “book a virtual assistant client”

Measurable

Net you want to make it measurable, so you can know definitively if you’ve been successful in reaching your goal.

For example, now you have a goal of “booking a virtual assistant client” but what you really want is to “book in 5 virtual assistant clients”

Attainable

Consider whether your goal is actually achievable. Is it reasonable to try and get 5 new virtual assistant clients straight off the bat? Maybe not…

So let’s change “book in 5 virtual assistant clients” to “book in my first virtual assistant client”.

Relevant

Now make sure the goal is relevant in the larger vision of your business. Are you trying to book a virtual assistant client who is an online course creator, for example?

Let’s change “book in my first virtual assistant client” and change it to “book in my online course creator client, as a virtual assistant”

Timely

Finally, you want to give yourself a real deadline. This way you’ll know exactly what you need to accomplish, and when you want to accomplish them by.

So let’s change “book in my online course creator client, as a virtual assistant” and let’s add a deadline to it, so “book in my online course creator client, as a virtual assistant within 30 days of launching my business”.

Let’s break it down…

You’ve now gone from, “book a client,” and turned it into a specific, clear goal:

Book in my online course creator client, as a virtual assistant within 30 days of launching my business.

See the difference? Now you can start taking smart actions towards your goal, and you have the added accountability of knowing exactly when you’ve achieved it.

Can you imagine how successful your goals would be if you followed this formula?

Instead of throwing something out there, you now have a formula you can use to create goals that are actually achievable.