Goal Setting

The following are some thoughts on goal setting from Mario Giganti (my brother). He runs a very successful financial advisory firm in Northern Ohio and I believe his ‘true’ calling is coaching people. I may even talk him into starting his own blog! Some really great thoughts….enjoy.

Goal Setting

How does one set a goal and actually work to accomplish it? This time of year, many of us set goals that we plan to achieve over the next year. Things like lose weight, go to Church more often, increase profit, sales or customers, etc.

Ready, set go – we are all too eager to just jump in. We do jump in, but then realize the water is too cold or the distance too far and, one thing leads to another and we just stop. I read a quote once, “3% of all adults have written goals…. And they earn more than the other 97% put together”. In that same book, it said something to the effect that only 4% of goals are accomplished if they are not written down vs. 44% (1100 times more likely) achieve their goals if they are written down. People with written goals succeed because they know where they are going.

So, why do we not achieve success in reaching our goals? I believe it comes down to a couple of key components:

1. We have too many things (hopes and wishes) we want to do (not goals), so the real goals don’t seem meaningful.

2. Our goals are typically long term (even losing 20 lbs can take months) – we lose focus when we don’t see the immediate, tangible results that we have in mind.

You can only fit so many big rocks into a jar. The rest can be filled with small rocks, sand and dirt. You can truly only have a few (count on both hands) big goals or areas of focus. You must ask yourself, “Is this really what I want to work at day in and day out and, in the end, will it be worth it?” Speaking from experience, only the big rocks get priority.

What does all this mean to you? In a word: Discipline and Planning! Take a moment to write down your goals or what you wish to accomplish in the next year. Next, jot a few notes or sentences about what it will take to accomplish each. Next, cross off the ones that don’t seem important or won’t motivate you.

Grab the 5-10 that are most important and write them down separately. Write down a vision statement or what it will look like when you accomplish it, how it will feel – what it will do for you or your family. Now is the hard part: How long do you expect this to take? What steps can you start taking to accomplish your goal? Are there intermediate goals that you can achieve that will move you on your way to success? What do these look like?

Your goal of losing 20 lbs may be easy or hard. The more you breakdown this goal into smaller steps, the easier it will be to achieve and the more meaningful each day will be. You may say this will take 3 months, so break that down into each month – say, 7 lbs, 7lbs, 6lbs over January, February, March. Now break down into 4 week periods – now that is just over a 1-2 lbs per week – a much more attainable short term result that can be measured and modified along the way. Now, here’s a trick – you need to eat right and exercise – focus during the week on achieving each of these goals – write down what you plan to eat or how many calories and how much you plan to exercise and what exercises. During each day or at night after dinner – write down what you did and compare. Even though your goal is to lose weight – focus on the activities that will lose the weight, not the weight loss itself. This creates the habits necessary to accomplish the smaller and larger goals.

Now you’ve achieved your goal – what will it take to maintain it – now that is your challenge. This is why creating the habit is critical to not only achieving but maintaining your success!

Good luck,
Mario

Related Posts

This Post Has 27 Comments

  3. I was curious if you ever considered changing the page layout of your blog? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 images. Maybe you could space it out better?

    Reply

  5. Pretty section of content. I simply stumbled upon your site and in accession capital to say that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your weblog posts. Anyway I’ll be subscribing for your augment and even I fulfillment you get right of entry to consistently rapidly.

    Reply

  9. It is perfect time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I desire to suggest you few interesting things or advice. Perhaps you can write next articles referring to this article. I want to read even more things about it!

    Reply

  10. Heya, already been reading your blogging site for a long time. I manage a comparable blog page but I keep receiving a pile of spam comments, how can you maintain your blog page so clean?

    Reply

  11. I am really impressed with your writing skills and also with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you customize it yourself? Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it is rare to see a great blog like this one today..

    Reply

    1. Hi Tamica. Thanks so much for the comments. I’m using WordPress and their Headway theme. Setting up a wordpress account is free and then I purchased the headway theme for about $75 or so. I initially had a Blogger (by Google) site and then switched it earlier this year. I had some help making the switch from a developer friend (if you want his name and info let me know). Thanks again for reaching out!

      Reply

  14. Pretty good post. You have a interesting opinion on this matter and I will be subscribing to your RSS feed and hope you will post again soon on similar matters. But I was would like to know what your article sources for the article are? Thanks a lot

    Reply

  16. What a write!! Very informative also easy to understand. Looking for more such posts!! Do you have a myspace? I recommended it on digg. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of new design. Anyway thank you for this blog.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back To Top