In business and life it is important to understand your purpose, the reason WHY you do or create something. Purpose is such a critical aspect of life that studies show without it life becomes a meaningless pursuit. This lack of meaning is commonly referred to as “lack of drive”.

What causes lack of drive in life?

“There is no realisation of your purpose without goal setting.”

― Carolyne A. Opinde

Lack of drive is a direct result of poor goalsetting. Often people would ask what drives you. What make you wake up very early in the morning and pursue life with all you have? The answer is goals. Whether in business or life, goals are important as they provide a point of reference for where you are and where you want to go. Well defined goals define what success would look like over a period of time. In short, good goals define what we want within a specified timeline.

How do I set my goal?

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

― Ecclesiastes 31:1

You may have heard about the acronym SMART. Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Time bound. While there are great ways to ensure your goals are well-defined, I recommend going above and beyond SMART. The principles that I am about to share here are results driven provide a wholesome approach to goal setting.

Here is a step by step process on how to develop and implement effective goals:

1. Identify the main problem. Ask yourself the WHY question till you cannot answer it further.

For example:

Q1. Why is my business below the 20% profit margin?
R1. Because we are not making enough sales.
Q2. Why are we not making enough sales?
R2: Because our sales team is not meeting their monthly targets.
Q3. Why is our sales team not meeting their monthly targets?
R3. Because the team is not following on leads to close deals.
Q4. Why they are not following on leads to close deals?
R4. Because they have not received coaching on how to get more YESes.
Q5. Why didn’t they not receive coaching on sales?
R5. Because the business does not allocate budget to coaching.
Q6. Why the business is not allocating a budget to coaching?
R6. Because they is no sense of collective ownership of the business.
Q7. Why?
R7. Because management team does not implement employee’s ideas.

In this case, it seems that this business in not profitable because there is no sense of collective ownership. The sales team does not feel like their ideas matter and are therefore not giving 100% efforts by going above and beyond the minimum requirement. In short the main problem lack of ownership of the business.

2. Involve your team in coming up with as many solutions as possible to solve the main problem.

3. Rank the solutions in order of budget allocation vs how much money it will save the business, time required, who is responsible and when it should be done.

4. Engage your business and relations coaches and have them provide their recommendations.

5. Based on your coach’s recommendation, set up monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual goals that are Specific. Measurable. Achievable. Realistic. Time-bound, Empowering to your staff and Rewarding to everyone (SMARTER).

6. Set boundaries to safeguard your team from backsliding and minimise the risk of losses.

7. Celebrate your daily wins with your team and reward your “A” players, those who go above and beyond the minimum requirement.

Here are examples of my own SMARTER goals for the next 6 months.

Weekly goal 1. Post one business blog per week from July- December 2017 at LessStressMoreSuccess online coaching platform.

Weekly goal 2. Celebrate my weekly successes by posting a positive message on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Daily goal 1. On a daily basis, I will do mind feeding for 30 minutes on quality materials such as, The Millionaire Underdog by JT Foxx, listen to Robert Kiyosaki podcasts.

Daily goal 2. I will implement one business idea per day that I came up with from my daily strategic thinking.

Remember

A well-defined business goal separates a purpose driven entrepreneur from a wishful thinker.

― Carolyne A. Opinde

As your business coach, I will walk this journey with you because goal setting and success is not an event but a lifetime commitment for a healthier and wealthier you.

About me:

Carolyne A. Opinde is a Fundraising Advisor and has been referred to as the NGO Whisperer.
She has more than 10 years’ experience raising resources for non-profits and has raised over US$ 100 million from leading global funders. She also holds a MSc. in Project Management (UK) with a focus on donor compliance within the non-profit sector. She is a certified Project Management Professional (UK) and has indepth understanding in the application of project management techniques for non-profits.
Carolyne is driven by her motto: “Raising funds, Impacting lives”.