As the year ends, we often look at the resolutions we started the year with, and also start looking at setting new ones for next year. We’ve probably missed some goals, and others we did well. Want to find out how to increase your chances of reaching your goals in 2015? Here’s a great video by Brian Tracy:
To summarise the 4 steps to reach your goals in 2015:
- Determine the most important goal
- Determine the most important skill that you can develop to achieve the goal
- Determine the most important thing you can do each day to achieve your most important goal
- Start and complete the most important task first thing in the morning
Bringing Your Talents
Now that you know what the steps are, how do we bring our Talents into the picture?
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Goal Setting
Your strengths are value-neutral, and hence they are only represent part of the equation. Your strengths will likely affect what you are drawn to in the first place and can give you an indication of where to set your goals on. Personally, I find that your passion, which is the other part of the equation, would play a larger role in this step.
Start with what you are passionate about, and then look at your strengths to see how they influence what you are drawn to.
Once you have done that, you can look at refining your goals by making them S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Taking sometime to do so will help you create useful and effective goals.
Skill Development
Strength is the consistent near-perfect performance at a particular task. When you look at what are the skills you can develop to achieve your goal, remember to always start with talent. When you add skill and knowledge to your areas of talent, there’s when your performance at a task will soar exponentially. When this happen, you will know that you are developing your talent into a strength.
Look at your goal right now, and reference your StrengthsFinder report. What are some talents that you use to aim towards your goal? And what skills and knowledge can you acquire to help you achieve your goal?
Here’s quick example: Assuming that your goal was to increase your sales, there could be several ways to reach this goal. If your dominant talent is Communication, you may want to develop the skill of public speaking to help you address crowds, generate leads and convert them into sales. If your dominant talent is Woo, you may shine in networking events. Learn to develop networking skills, learn who to network with, where people hang out, and how you can get into that social circle. Joining a Business Network International (BNI) group may also help you.
So knowing your talents will help you aim your efforts more effectively to achieve greater results in shorter periods of time.
3…2…1…ACTION!
Once you have determined your best way forward, it’s time for action! It’s not just a matter of knowing, but of motivation! We often know what we are supposed to do, but actually doing it is another matter. Brian Tracy’s suggestion to start and complete an important task in the morning everyday is a great idea. To make it even more powerful, think of how your talents can help motivate you. If you are high in Relator, bring a friend or colleague along for the ride, if you are high in Achiever, pull up your to-do list, lock the task in, and have the satisfaction of crossing it out when you are done with the task. As you do things that naturally energies you, you will be drawn towards it naturally, and overtime, this will become a habit.
And according to Stephen R. Covey, for a habit to form you need 3 things:
- You must know what to do (That’s goal setting, and determining what’s the important thing to do)
- You must know how to do it (That’s learning skills and knowledge to develop talent to strength)
- You must want to do it (That’s motivation!)
So there you go! Happy new year, and may it be a exciting and fulfilling year ahead!
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