When I think about goal setting from a holistic perspective, Zig Ziglar’s wheel of life concept seems to be best. When I’m honest with myself, I’m not really a holistic goal setter. I find it easier to set two types of goals: Business or career goals and fitness goals. Zig’s approach helps me see that in many areas of my life that are important to me- like my spiritual life and my relationship with my friends and my husband- I’m very haphazard instead of intentional. The spokes of the wheel are: Career Financial Spiritual Physical Intellectual Family Social The approach
Goal setting works. But how do you go about deciding what your goals will be? The late Stephen Covey, emphasizes in at least two of his bestsellers (First Things First and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) the concept of time management and therefore goal setting based on importance of well, what’s important. The method for setting your goals (or big rocks as he terms them) is simple. Ask yourself two questions: What is the one thing that if I STARTED doing it, would make a tremendous positive difference in my life? What is the one thing that if I
It’s that time of year. New Year’s resolutions abound still on this 10th day of the New Year. We’re sticking to them now. Will we by month end? New Years’ resolutions are quite simply, goals. They can be set at any time of the year, and there are as many methods for setting and pursuing them as there are failed attempts at reaching them. But goal setting is a method that works. Research shows it does if it is handled within certain contexts and parameters. For the sake of full disclosure, I’m all about goal setting as a performance management method. I
I’ve always been a list maker. I love to make a list at the end of each work day, so I can draw a red line through item after time the following work day. And, by the way, I don’t just do this for work. I do it for everything: grocery list, kid’s activities for the week, Christmas shopping list, cleaning for the week and the list goes on and on. I’m the queen of lists. That being said, even though I’m a list maker, I’m still not as organized as I would like to be. But, when I began
I want to round out the goal setting discussion by focusing on the importance of feedback. To illustrate, feedback has played a critical role in a current client business coaching engagement. To begin the coaching process this past summer, we employed a 360° feedback mechanism to help set priorities for the client’s development. Feedback was first necessary to set goals and priorities. Based on areas for improvement, we developed four questions that she asks herself each and every day. These are all “yes” or “no” questions. (As example, a question I ask myself every day is “Did I do something to develop new business