Setting Goals and Accomplishing Them!
- Photo by Barun Patro at stock.xchng.
I love setting goals. I especially enjoy setting goals at the beginning of a new year. It’s like having a clean slate of possibilities. So much time to get better and get more out of life!
This year, I have several personal goals like lose five pounds so I don’t have to buy new clothes, eat mostly local and unprocessed food, get an awesome score on the GMAT, and write an eBook.
In addition, I always set at least one or two professional goals that will benefit not only me, but also my products and customers. Last year, my goal was to establish an advisory council for one of our major product lines. I knew that we would be able to get really good, candid feedback from a small group of diverse customers. Now, a year later, we have a solid group of regular attendees for our quarterly meetings. The result: we have a much better understanding of our customers, what they want, and how we can meet their business objectives through our services.
So, how does one go about setting up attainable goals and accomplishing them?
- Find some time in a quiet place to brainstorm about what you want out of 2010. Write down everything that comes to mind. Don’t filter.
- Look through the list and sort by personal/professional.
- Prioritize your lists.
- Select the top 2-3 goals in each list. These are your goals for the year. More than that and you will feel overwhelmed and be less likely to succeed.
- Pick one goal to start with. Each day, make some progress toward your goal.
- Once you reach the first goal, move on to the next. Staying focused on one goal will ensure that you accomplish it.
That’s it. I wish you a joyful and balanced 2010!
Note: Leo Babauta over at zenhabits.net has put together a comprehensive method for accomplishing and sticking with new habits. Check out his post on the topic.
Hi Tabita
Do you have any tips to share on how to get an advisory board started and how to keep it focused?
Thanks
Hi Davina,
I wrote a post a while back called “5 Great Ways to Get Customer Feedback” in which I talk briefly about creating a customer council.
What I have found is that it is best to have a group of 10-15 of your most vocal customers (this way, you end up with at least five at any given meeting). Make sure you have at least one or two who are really satisfied customers. Our customer council meets quarterly. With all the travel restrictions these days, we usually do a conference call. However, we do invite our customers to visit us once a year, if they have the budget for it. We follow the same agenda every time for consistency and focus:
What’s coming in the very next release. (more of a sneak peak than anything else)
Looking ahead. (this is where we pull out the roadmap)
What did we miss? (customers can provide their input to the roadmap and suggest enhancements)
Vote for your top items. (customers get to vote on two or three top items and the winner is guaranteed to be in an upcoming release)
Let me know if you would like more info and I can certainly devote an entire blog post to this topic.
Thanks Tabita, I will work through your previous post and try my hand at it too.
Regards
Davina