Want better odds than you can get in Vegas?

Then, as Bob Grinde says, “Go out and buy yourself a five-cent pencil and a ten-cent notebook and begin to write down some million dollar ideas for yourself.”

Even though there seems to be some question to the validity of the Yale or Harvard studies often referenced in many books on goal setting, my personal experience is that writing your goals on a regular, even daily basis speeds your rate of accomplishment. Everyone is looking for an edge and I certainly like these odds better than those at a Vegas Blackjack table. I would much rather bet on myself and my future than leave it to a game of chance.

So, how's Q1 going for you...achieving what you set out to in 2017? Are you moving TOWARD or AWAY from your goals? If you're moving TOWARD YOUR GOALS, then keep doing what you've been doing! But, what do you do if you find yourself MOVING AWAY FROM YOUR GOALS? Stop and reassess!

You can RESTART your QUARTER (year) now! You don't have to wait until the end of March, middle of the year or first of next year to start over. I once worked for a publicly traded company that had such dismal sales in Q1, they recognized the only way to improve flagging employee motivation and salvage the year was to start over from a sales year standpoint. So, that's what they did...they reset all quotas and competitions as if it were January 1 all over (but, three months later) and got sales back on track for the remainder of the year.

You can do this too! Go back to the drawing board: What's working?; What's not working?; What do you need to do more of?; What do you need to do less of?; What should you start doing?; and What should you stop doing?

1 and 1/2 months in, I hope you are having a great 2016 and enjoying our goal setting posts!

Not sure how to get started writing you goals? Following are 10 simple steps we teach our executive coaching clients.

Remember, you will always be better your 10th time than you are your first time. So, just start setting and writing your goals following these simple guidelines. You will get better with practice and over time your goals will write themselves. What I mean by that is that over the course of days and weeks, of regular goal setting, you will figure out what you really want and as a result, you will begin to write goals that detail YOUR hopes and dreams. More importantly, you will find yourself doing the things that move you toward those goals. Because, being a person of integrity, you cannot regularly write something you say you are going to do and then not do it.

Here are 10 Steps to Goal Setting:

If goal setting is so great, why don't more people set goals?

That's a great question! Some estimates say that fewer than 5% of people set goals. Even if that figure is off by another 15%, that's still 80% of people not setting goals. Why?

I think the #1 reason is a combination...most people don't understand the importance of setting goals and they don't know how to set their goals.

I don't know about you, but we never talked about writing things down and making a plan in my childhood. I was encouraged to do more and not to quit, but I never heard about goal setting until after college when a good friend introduced me to Zig Ziglar in the late 1980s. Yet, we find that in schools where goal-setting programs have been introduced, young people become excited about goal-setting…they have a more positive outlook toward school, take responsibility for their education, and have greater confidence about themselves and about their futures. Encourage your children to set worthwhile and realistic goals from an early age.