The Solution to Reaching Your Goals

If you have not read my previous two posts I highly recommend you do so before reading this one.

• Life Hack: Make Goals Not Resolutions (2 Weeks Ago)
• What Gets Measured, Gets Managed (Last Week)

I fully believe that goal setting is a great way to grow and transform into the person you have always dreamed of becoming. But if you are anything like me, it still feels like there is a step messing even after you lay out your goals.

When I was younger, I dreamed of playing baseball for my high school’s team and aspired to continue playing into college.

So, I set a goal.

It was to make the baseball team my freshman year. At my school we had a Varsity, Junior Varsity and a ninth grade team. My class had a lot of talent and I knew tryouts would be competitive for the ninth grade team, but I thought I make it through all of the cuts. The only way I knew to accomplish my goal was to try really hard at tryouts, but the only problem was that most of the guys at tryouts were trying really hard as well.

The coaching staff held occasional workouts, which I attended and almost died each time from exhaustion. Beyond these tryouts, I was relying on natural talent and ten years of little league experience.

No one bothered to tell me, including my common sense, that it takes more than sporadic workouts and mediocre talent to have a shot at making the team. If I had known then what I know now, I would have taken baby steps.

 

 

I would have been working out on my own, going to the batting cages on my own, finding a partner to hit me ground balls and pop ups, all on a regular basis. I would have taken baby steps to cover the gap between my natural talent and the skill needed to make the team, but I didn’t and I ended up being cut from the team early.

I do not ever want to be cut again.

Baby steps. Look down, concentrate on what you are doing and focus on making progress one little step at a time.  Before you know it, you will look up and find yourself well on your way to accomplishing your goals.

The Solution To Reaching Your Goals

Recently I have been searching for a system to help measure the progress I am making towards my goals for the year. Last week, I was on twitter and a friend of mine, Barrett, who is doing some great things for young professionals over at Living for Monday, posted a picture of the way he is working through this particular issue. The simplicity of his solution is what struck me most.

Barrett is simply using KPIs for his life. If you are unfamiliar with KPIs, it stands for Key Performance Indicators. It is how many businesses track their statistics and progress over time. I have been using KPIs at my job for over a year now and not once did it occur to me to have a set of personal growth trackers.

Below is a picture of my personal KPI sheet for the next month.

 

 

My KPI set is modeled almost exactly the same as the one Barrett posted on Twitter last week with a few minor adjustments.

I am obviously still in trial mode with this process, but I see no reason for it to not work. It is essentially creating a weekly To Do list for my life. A way to force myself to take baby steps every day and move toward my goals one day at a time.

If I don’t meet all of those goals on a weekly basis there are no repercussions, but I know myself well enough to know that I want to hit my benchmarks and consistently perform on a high level. As long as I keep track of my KPIs I will meet my weekly quotas due purely to my competitive nature and drive to succeed.

I am confident that by keeping track of my personal KPIs, I will be able to reach my larger goals.

I harped on it last week and I will do it again! What gets measured, gets managed!

 

I would love to hear about your goals and the baby steps you are taking to reach them. Connect with me on Twitter to keep me posted on how it’s going and we can share what we learn along the way! You can find me here!

 

P.S. If you aren’t a fan of pen and paper to track your personal KPIs, there is a free service called irunurun which allows you to create personal KPIs. It weights them based on your selection and allots a point value to each item so at the end of the week (Sunday at midnight) you receive a final score for the week. As in 87 out of 100 in reaching your weekly goals. Generally 85+ is where you want to aim. The great thing about irunurun is that you can team up with friends and co-workers to add in a bit of competition. Try and get the highest score of the week, while pushing yourself to accomplish your goals. It’s a great piece of software. You can find it here: http://www.irunurun.com/ and you can also download the mobile app to track your progress if you choose!

Get after it!