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What can transform a monotonous task into inspired service? A mundane job into a passionate career? What separates the man who is laying brick from the one building a cathedral? Purpose. Purpose which is the reason for which something is done or created. Purpose can also differentiate a quota from a goal. You’ve probably heard the 5 points of an effective goal. It must be:

1. Meaningful to You
2. The Right Size
3. Specific and Measurable with a Due Date
4. Written Down
5. Reviewed

Review our Goal Setting Worksheet to put these 5 characteristics into practice.

If you knew these 5 points and didn’t understand the purpose of goal setting then there is a chance that you could be setting goals that are more similar to a quota or it will feel like a chore when you are setting your goals. These are reasons why we are discussing the 3 Purposes of Goal Setting. By better understanding the reason behind setting your goals, the more likely you are to

a.) set goals
b.) be excited about those goals and
c.) hit those goals.

The three purposes are simple. A goal gives you Direction, Focus and Urgency. Let me explain what each means.

1. A Goal Gives You Direction

This moves you from a generality to a specific. It’s the difference between saying you “like the mountains” versus setting the goal of “going to Yellowstone”. It’s the difference between saying “I want to make more money” versus setting the goal to “increase your income by 15%” or “make $200,000″. It is the difference between saying “I wish I knew how to create my own website” versus setting the goal of “going to a seminar on website creation”. This direction points you to a specific place and tells you where you are heading. You can always change that direction later if you choose but this way you are moving forward.

2. Goals give You Focus

If you lived in Florida and said that you wanted to go to Yellowstone you would know what direction you needed to move to get there but without focus you have a high chance of wasting time and energy. For example, if you started driving in the direction of Yellowstone and you didn’t have a map or an agenda of where you might stay along the way or detailed directions figured out then you would probably get lost.

By having a good goal you are focused on what needs to be done in order to hit your goal. It helps to crystallize your goal into manageable bite-sized pieces. So, if the direction of your goal is to increase your income by 15% then your focus could be to lay out what your quarterly, monthly, and weekly activity will be along the way. Then when you are in that month, you will know what to focus on. This also gives you little victories along the journey.

One of my goals this year was to race in a triathlon. And what I learned was that by keeping my focus on each event of swimming, biking, and running during that specific portion of the race it allowed me to not get discouraged that I still had over 100 miles to go or that I had 8 hours left and I was already tired. I wasn’t thinking about the run while I was in the water. I know that makes sense in a physical world example but even if your goal was to increase your income by 15%, focusing would keep you from thinking about the sales calls you are going to make tomorrow while you are writing a proposal today. The focus will keep your mind on today’s lecture in the website class and not on the lecture that happened last week.

3. Goals Give You Urgency

If there were no deadline to this goal then we might not ever get around to it. Creating urgency gets us moving. It tells us how much intensity we must have when we move. If we were still planning the trip to Yellowstone we would ask ourselves “which season do we want to be there?” and then keep asking more specific questions to narrow down the time to exactly when you are going to leave your house to when you expect to arrive in Yellowstone and then when do you plan on leaving and getting back home. If your goal is to increase your income by 15% then what is the timeline that you are talking about. Is it over a calendar year or is it over a one-month timeframe?

When you set a real goal that has an end date you can use that urgency to get you up in the morning. You can use the urgency to push you harder on the days that you don’t “feel” like going towards your goal. Knowing how urgent the issue is also serves you because it let’s you know when you can take a day off for rest.

Absorb these 3 purposes into your next goal setting session and watch how much more fun the process can be. You will see that goals are here to SERVE you, not for you to serve your goals. Keep that straight and you will BE FREE.

Tom Weber
VP of Sales