Pain for you is drifting and wandering on someone else’s course.  Pain is letting other people determine not only what you will do, but exactly how you will do it.  This pain is personal to you.  You are probably baffled by seeing people around you accept this as the normal course of life.   For you, this is an abnormality that cannot be tolerated.  You can – and must – set your goals, along your own path to answering "how can I better myself?"

The goals you set individually do not have to be at odds with other people’s goals.   The company changes your monthly goals from 20 to 30 widgets a month? Then set your own goals of how to reach that goal.  These goals may be have weekly sessions with the widget-making machine operators to find more efficient methods of widget-making.  The key is that they are your goals.

Goals have these 5 characteristics to effective and practical.

  1. Specific.  You must be able to know when you have reached your goal.  Vague goals are usually simply expressions of a motivation. “To improve office morale” is the motivation.  The goal is “Reduce employee turn-over by 10%” is a goal.

  2. Measurable.  This requires the property unit of measure and the proper measuring tool.  “Employee turn-over” may not be the proper measure for office morale if your employees are talented and attractive to competitors.  “Office morale” may be better measured by “days off” or just watching the number of outings employees take with each other.

  3. Attainable.  The goal must be not only within human ability to achieve, but also your ability to achieve.  A goal of “make everyone in the office happy” is not attainable.   The goal of “improve office morale” may not be attainable by you as office manager if headquarters is laying people off without notice or preparation.  In this situation, the attainable goal might be to meet with the employees a specific number of times, one on one.

  4. Realistic.  Many organizational goals are not grounded in reality.  “Sell 10 unicorns a month” sounds pretty, but is not realistic.  This is different from the measure of attainability, in that attainability assumes a grounding in reality.  The goal of “improve internal satisfaction scores by 15%” is a realistic goal.

  5. Timely.  This actually means “oriented to time and space.”  The goals must be achievable within a timeframe that makes sense for their achievement.  Improving the office morale after everyone leaves is not timely.

A goal has the 5 characteristics listed above.  Without all of them, all you have is a dream.  And dreams, as we know, disappear when reality wakes us up.  Even if you have goals that are imposed on you by management or clients, you can still develop your own goals, which will be more personal to you.  Without that personal connection, any goal you achieve will be empty and fleeting.  You are working toward "how can I better myself?" on your terms.

The solution is to have a comprehensive system that includes goal setting as a key component, and not just as part of superficial time management system.  The system can be something you develop, which is time consuming and most likely not complete enough.  It can be a packaged system, which will probably be complete, but not personal or flexible enough.  The ideal system is a framework around which you build your system.  Lawyers have the rules of trial procedure, but these rules do not dictate how any particular case or trial is conducted.   Your system will be one that uses goal setting as a component, but is more than just a goal setting or time management system.

STRESS JUDO COACHING is designed to be that comprehensive system.  Designed around the exclusive progressive belt training system, this unique training and coaching program can be personalized, for you to reach your black belt potential. Just JOIN THE COMMUNITY using the box to the right (-->) and welcome!