Share Your Goals To Maintain Accountability
One of the best ways to ensure you follow through on your goals is to share your goals with peers or someone, like a coach, who will be committed to helping you stay accountable to your goals.
Determine what you need from a support group – constant reminding, daily emails, weekly check-ins – and share your ideas with those whom you think would support you the best. Tell them what you need or want for support and ask if they would be willing to keep you accountable.
Here are some great ideas for getting help to maintain accountability:
- Family and friends can be a tremendous support group who share a genuine interest in your success.
- Joining an association for others in your field, profession, or other interest is a great way to meet others who may be willing to help you be accountable to your goals. They may even ask you to do the same for them.
- Hiring a professional life or business coach is another increasingly popular way to get the support necessary to stay on track and on target with your goals. These personal coaches work one-on-one with clients. You may have conversations once a week, once a day, or at any other intervals you determine.
A coach is an added cost, but for many it’s an investment that can help them realize tangible results in their business or personal life.
- Blogging. Some people even start blogs to keep themselves accountable. Sometimes it’s easier to announce your goals to the anonomous internet world than to your family and friends.
This is not recommended for buisness planning, because you don’t want your competitors knowing what your plans are, but if journaling online helps keep you on track with personal goals, then do whatever will motivate you to reach those goals.
Watch Your Progress
The only way you’ll be able to achieve your short term or long term goals is if you’re watching your progress.
It’s not enough to just set your goals. It’s also important to refer to your plan, do the work necessary, and assess your progress towards your goals every step of the way.
Keep your business or life plan close at hand on your desk or on a bulletin board and look at it regularly. Too many plans and goals spend their lives hidden in files, and that is a sure recipe for disappointment!
Remember that these plans are not set in stone. They are meant to be fluid and to change with time or as your interests change. These plans will help keep you on your chosen path to success.
When you reach a milestone, celebrate! Tell your family, friends and accountability partner. Journal about it. Take special note of how good you feel knowing that your hard work has paid off and you’re one step closer to reaching a long term goal.
If you’re using the S.M.A.R.T principles, refer to your goals regularly to mark the measurable points of progression included in your plan. Create a chart for each month that highlights progress you’ve made on your goals and keep that chart visible so it won’t be overlooked.
Goals don’t just happen by themselves; they need your attention as you follow your plan.
Conclusion
Goals are the beacons that remind us of our dreams and aspirations. If those goals aren’t specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely, (S.M.A.R.T. principles) they’ll lose their meaning and practicality and will cease to serve the purpose for which they were designed!
Checklist for Creating and Realizing Your Goals:
- Remember to give yourself the time necessary to create goals according to the S.M.A.R.T principle. Make sure you have all the information necessary before creating your goals so that they’ll be realistic and attainable.
- Incorporate short term goals into your long term goal-setting. Short term goals are like preliminary steps along the way to achieving your long term goals. Short term goals also encourage you to assess your plan along the way and adjust as needed.
- Keeping yourself accountable to your goals is critical. Share your goals with someone else like a peer or coach.
- Monitor your progress towards your goals – don’t keep your goals filed away. Keep them front and center so that your actions and tasks will stay aligned to your goals.
[Picture – Kimo – Unsplash]
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