You must make sure you are in control of your goals. And the only way to do this is to clearly state any goal you wish to achieve as a performance goal, NOT an outcome goal.
Outcome goals sound like this –
Lose 20 pounds
Make more money this year
Get 5 new clients this month
Get a new job
Outcome goals like that are NOT within your control. They involve the decision-making processes of another person or the input of another situation or circumstance, like health.
You may have the DESIRED OUTCOME to drop 10 pounds or to get 5 new clients but the key to achieving any goal is to identify it as it relates to your own PERFORMANCE.
So, ‘lose 20 pounds’ becomes ‘go to the gym 3 times a week’. ‘Make more money’ becomes ‘put 15% of each paycheck into a savings account’. ‘Get 5 new clients’ becomes ‘attend 20 networking events in the next 40 days’.
Performance goals make the desired outcome more likely to happen and are something you can always achieve because they are within your control.
Action – What goal have you struggled with? How does it need to be reworded into a performance goal?