Category Archives: Goal setting

Great Goals for Quarter 4 2020

Goal setting, Life's purpose, Planning, Uncategorized

How the year does fly by! Thinking back to January 2020 when I was setting my goals for the year ahead looks like eons ago now! That was our world pre-covid 19. The pandemic took us all by surprise and the best made plans in many cases were no longer possible. As I write we will soon be starting into the 4th quarter of 2020. This is a great time of the year to stop and reflect and do some planning for the last three months of the year. It’s time now to set great goals for quarter 4 2020. September for many of us is a time of new beginnings. Many schools and colleges open after the summer break and people get down to work again after their summer holidays. In this article I want to give you some key pointers on the why and how of setting great goals for quarter 4 2020.

There are no facts about the future!

Even if 2020 has not been a great year for you so far and those new year’s resolutions are just a distant memory, you can change everything in your life for the better over the next three months. There are no facts about the future – everything is possible!

Why do we need goals?

This an important question and I explain this in the lecture below. This lecture is taken from my goal setting 101 course.

Some key planning tips

  • Be very clear about the Why. What is your vision for your life? What is your life’s purpose (ikigai or hedgehog concept)? Really know why you want to achieve your goals. Engage with your Why emotionally.
  • Set clear goals – they must be SMART.
  • Break your goals down into achievable chunks.
  • Watch out for the pitfalls of goal setting such as tunnel vision.
  • Use powerful tools such as visualisation, affirmations and mind movies to turbo charge your goal setting.
  • Learn how to conduct an effective After Action Review.
  • Knowing about the above tips without acting on them in your life is not enough (it’s only 10% – the real work is implementing these goals setting tips in your life)
  • Learn about these goal setting strategies and more in my Goal Setting 101 Course. By the way the courses includes 16 practical assignments because action is key to success (again knowing is only 10% progress).

Best wishes,

Tom

If you need goal setting inspiration and would like set clear goals for the remainder of 2020 you are invited to sign up to my complete goal setting course (lecture 2 above). You can get lifetime access to the course for $12.99 using this link. There is a no questions asked 30 day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. Click the link to get more details and watch the free preview. Offer expires on 10/21/2020 22:10 PM PDT (GMT -7). I look forward to seeing you on the course! Check out all my courses here.

Does a 30 Day Challenge Work?

30 day challenge, Goal Achievement, Goal setting, , , , , ,
Day 18 out of 30 update

On July 1st I started a 30 day challenge on improving my online marketing skills and knowledge. How well does a 30 day challenge work? The 30 Day Challenge is an assignment from my course: ‘Goal Setting 101 – How to Set and Achieve Goals 2020’. In this blog post I want to give a 30 day challenge progress update as I am just over half way through my challenge. Since I started the challenge I have been spending at least one hour per day taking courses on digital marketing and implementing ideas in my business. I am currently on day 18 of the challenge and so far I have not missed a single day. In fact I estimate that I have actually spent 45.5 hours on the challenge so far which way more than double the time input I was supposed to have given at this stage. I am extremely happy with my progress and what I am learning.

Tracking my progress

One thing that has really helped me stay on track is having a very clear record to fill in and record my daily progress. Each day I record what I am doing and the time spent. Importantly I also record what lessons I am learning. This is very motivating and I don’t want to miss a single day. Therefore if you track your progress carefully it really does help in making a 30 day challenge work.

  • My 30 Day Challenge in Action

As you can see from the above copy of my 30 day challenge record sheet I am learning loads as I go along. You can download a copy of the template I am using here:

30-Day-Challenge-Template_FinalDownload

What I have learned so far

A key thing that I have learned is that a sole focus on results can be really frustrating. For example I have really worked hard on improving my YouTube account. I have added thumbnails, key words, tags etc. to improve Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This type of effort is tedious and slow (as I have noted on my record sheet a number of times). I don’t yet see any change in my results from this effort. Views have not increased. That is why it is really important to focus instead on inputs and be really happy about that. In my case that is the minimum of 1 hour per day spent learning and working on the task. I have to believe that results will come later. I think of Jim Collins and his book ‘Good to Great’ and the what he calls the Flywheel Effect. Success at anything is like pushing a heavy flywheel. It turns very slowly at first and takes a lot of effort. We have to keep pushing and eventually the flywheel builds momentum.

Best wishes, Tom

P.S. I will be giving a full analysis of my 30 day challenge when it is completed. If you are feeling stuck and lacking momentum on any of your goals try a 30 day challenge to get you unstuck! The 30 Challenge is an assignment in my course ‘Goal Setting 101 – How to Set and Achieve Goals 2020’. Please click here to find out more about the course and watch the free course preview. I look forward to seeing you on the course!