Are You Meeting Your Goals?

If you hadn’t heard, yesterday was Cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the Christmas season. Most sites had some type of discount or sale for the occasion and LotusJump was no exception. We were offering a LotusJump Pro account for just $20/month to Cyber Monday signups (cough…the page is still up here if you hurry…cough). As we planned the promotion we set a goal for the number of signups we wanted to achieve.

Some thought the goal was pretty high, but we set out to achieve our goal anyway. We worked the social media channel hard and it worked like a charm – we reached our goal! But this got me to thinking a little about goals.

How Do You Set Goals?

At LotusJump we just picked a nice round number that sounded big and went for it. There wasn’t a whole lot behind it. Perhaps you’ve also done this by choosing some random number of pounds you want to lose. I submit my thoughts on how to set goals.

Investigate, Evaluate and Set a Date

The first step is to investigate what areas you want to improve. Perhaps you want to be more fit or acquire a new talent. Everyone will have different areas they want to work on, but do a little homework so that you know exactly what you want and what it will take to get it.

Second, you need to evaluate how you’ve done with goals in the past. Have you failed in the past because you didn’t break the goal into small enough steps? If you succeeded, what factors contributed to your success. Look for both the good and the bad.

Lastly, you need to set a date. If your goal is to be more fit, register for a marathon. You’ll have a firm date to work toward and you can put a training program in place to achieve your goal. Want to become a better golfer? Schedule a round at your favorite course months in advance and determine the score you want to shoot in that round. Then practice and prepare. The date gives you a benchmark and allows you (and perhaps some friends) to check your progress.

For most people goal-setting is an annual event associated with New Year’s. That’s fine, but I think that people don’t often take enough time to analyze how they did with last year’s goals before worrying about next year’s goals. Hopefully this post will give you a month to really search for areas of improvement, start thinking about how you’ve done with your past goals and set some dates.