Making progress on the path to your goals

Do you ever have so many goals in your head that you can’t even figure out what you need to accomplish next? You’re not alone, and the key to making progress on your goals is in weekly action. Not just thinking about the goal, but taking steps that will help you get them closer to your grasp.

A few weeks ago, we talked about Goal-Setting, One Step at a Time. We said that the goals we set must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) in order to accomplish them. In most cases accomplishing your goals will require you to set objectives to finish each week in order to keep you on track to accomplish your goals in an efficient, timely manner.

What should your objectives be? It’s probably best to think of them as mini-goals, so if you’re goal is to increase sales by 15% by the end of the year, your objectives are the main weekly activities that will get you there. It could be that you need to call five customers a week and ask for a referral, or another objective could be that you need to start investing in advertising and sponsorships.

An easy way to see the results of this is to empower your employees to write down two objectives that they would like to accomplish this week. It needs to be completely on their own so they are not feeling forced to finish the task. As long as the objectives are SMART, your employees will be more driven and focused each week.