Goals, Strategies and Microactions!

Some more helpful stuff about GOALS! Because half the battle is getting the goal right, RIGHT?! 

The best type of GOAL

The best type of goal is a RESULTS goal, which means it’s something that happens as a result of all your hard work. Your work is your ACTIONS.

A businessy example of a RESULTS goal is $10,000 in sales. The sales are a result of all the activities you did to make those sales (attending markets, publishing your blog, partnering with another small business)

A personal example of a RESULTS  goal is getting to a size 12  from a size 16. The size loss is a result of  the activities you did, like going for walks or swapping to healthy food.

Actions don’t make good goals

Sometimes you might be tempted to set your ACTIONS themselves as a goal. For example you might want to set your goal as posting twice a day to Instagram for 100 days.

The trouble with “Action”  goals like this though, is that they often doesn’t get us to where we actually want to be.

So maybe you decide to set your goal as posting twice a day to Instagram for 100 days in the hope that you’ll get more online sales. But the half way through the 100 days you find that it’s not working. It’s not getting you (m)any sales. 

Or, even worse, you get the WHOLE way through the 100 Day and realise it didn’t work.

Gah! This OFTEN happens with “action” goals.

ACTION goals are really Strategies

Most ‘action’ goals are really strategies. Strategies are a WAY to reach the goal rather than the goal itself.

So if you want to make 50 online sales in the next 100 days, your strategies might include things like:

• Get big on Instagram
• Maintain presence on FB
• Start getting active on Pinterest

(these are totes made up!)

So rather than pick an “Action” goal, pick a “Result”s goal and then include your “”Action” as one of your strategies to help you get there.

Strategies into Micro-actions

Once you’ve got your  Goal and your Strategies, you can then work out what Microactions you need to do for each Strategy. Microactions are the little activities you do to reach your goal.

If you’ve been struggling to come up with your list of microactions, try starting with a list of your Strategies. I think you’ll find it easier! 

If you’re in the 100 Day Goal group, see this is what Mandy Munro has done. Her seven Master Action sheets are the Strategies.

Some strategies don’t work, that’s fine

Once you get going you’ll find that some of your strategies don’t seem to be getting you towards your goal. Frustrating, but that’s life.

Maybe you put your heart and soul into your Facebook page but didn’t get any sales. That’s fine. Dump the Facebook strategy and do more on the others (Instagram, for instance). But stick to your goal. You still want to make more online sales, you’re just not going to do it with Facebook.

 

Picking your goals!

Picking the right goal is super-important. We’ve had more than 25,000 people do the 100 Day Goal over the past (almost) three years and the number ONE reason people give for not achieving the goal is that they picked the wrong goal! More tips here and here on picking your goal, but remember: make it a RESULTS goal not an ACTION goal.

Goal HELP!

Gosh, I have had LOTS of requests for help on setting your goals. Y’know I would absolutely love to be able to help you all individually, but I just don’t have enough time! Last night I burned the dinner because I was sooo busy chatting on email about GOALS!

So from now on – and it kills me to say this – but I can’t really chat on email/messenger about your goals. I’m hoping that this post (and the others I linked to, plus the Workbook) will help.

BUT, I can still help in a small way! If you would still like some goal advice  I am going to do (I think ten) private half- hour Skype sessions. These will be paying sessions but at a much discounted rate. Details here. xx

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