The 10 step goal setting template for Entrepreneurs
Ensure that you achieve all your goals to increase business this year!
The Entrepreneur’s Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting
Written by Ben Ivey
Master the art of Goal setting as an entrepreneur with templates, videos and resources.
Goal setting as an entrepreneur is about sustainably achieving what you desire in the quickest way possible. Yet, very often entrepreneurs set so many goals that they become overwhelmed. They procrastinate, overanalyse and don’t create the success that they desire.
What is goal setting?
Goal setting is the ability to clarify what you want and achieve it. As an entrepreneur, this is most often setting clear goals to grow a sustainably profitable business.
Why goal setting is important in 2021?
Competition is becoming more and more fierce in the world today. Unless you can adapt, prioritise and achieve goals faster than your competition, you will be left behind. As an entrepreneur, your ability to set, focus and follow through on goals is in direct relation to your own business success.
You may be missing certain types of goals in your business. Not only can this cause more stress but it also decreases the productivity for your team. Yet once you have the right goals in place, you can move much faster as an organisation. Pick and choose which goals you need from the list below.
Types of goal setting
There are 6 types of goal setting for entrepreneurs. You may need to use just one or perhaps even all of these goal setting techniques depending on the size of your organisation.
Long term Goals
These are the goals you want to achieve long term in your business. Common ones include: absolute financial freedom, sell my company for a huge profit or create passive income so I never have to work again.
These are all great long-term business goals. However, very often these long-term goals can seem so far away that they become unrealistic. Breaking down these long-term goals into shorter more achievable goals is of paramount importance
1-Year Goals
1-year goals could be the calendar year, business year or financial year of your organisation. When entrepreneurs set these goals, they will often overestimate what is possible. They set huge goals, yet become disappointed at the end of the year when they aren’t achieved.
1 year from a goal setting perspective is very challenging to fully comprehend. Therefore, we must also set alternate goals that we can better estimate.
Power Year Goals
These are 3-month goals and are most important for entrepreneurs. Set one specific major goal to achieve in the next 3 months and set a few minor goals to achieve as secondary priorities. This helps maintain focus on one area whilst also progressing in other parts of your organisation.
Major Goals
Major goals are the primary focus, set every 3 months. Everything you do in these 3 months is focused towards completing this goal. This major goal needs to be constructed thinking about the Pareto Principle. You want to have a major goal that shifts your business forward much faster than anything else you could do.
Minor Goals
Every 3 months you will also set 2 to 3 minor goals. These are also of importance but are not the primary focus for the power year. These smaller goals support your business success and are completed in less time.
Be Goals
Be goals are used to help you become a better leader in your organisation. You may want to be decisive, be confident, be disciplined …etc. These are of great importance to enable you to continually grow into the entrepreneur you must become to effectively lead your organisation.
NOTE: You are a human being not a human doing. You don’t have to do a certain thing in order to be a certain way. Instead choose to be the leader in your organisation now to exponentially increase your success. For further reading on this look at The Secret No One Told You to Boost Business Success.
Pro and Cons of Goal Setting
The top 3 benefits of goal setting:
1. Clear direction for the business
Having a clear direction for the business is of great importance as an entrepreneur. Goal setting helps achieve that by giving you a clear focus so that you don’t become distracted with other tasks. This clear direction means you can make fast progress in a short amount of time to achieve what you desire in your business.
2. Specific priorities
By having goals, you are creating priorities to focus on. You can see what is important for your business right now. Instead of randomly choosing tasks each day, you clearly have a priority that you know will help improve your business. This helps increase your productivity day to day as you clearly know your priorities.
3. Motivation
Having a goal helps you and your team feel motivated. You have something to work towards and very often you will make much more progress having a clear target to hit. If your goal isn’t motivating you then you must go back to the 8 key steps to goal setting template and determine your big why.
Top 3 cons of goal setting:
Feel stressed
The biggest issue with goal setting is that you can feel stress to achieve the goal. With deadlines approaching, juggling multiple teams or even managing lots of projects, goal setting can make you feel very stressed.
Some entrepreneurs do not set goals because of the stress that it causes them. If you experience stress with goal setting then do check out: the biggest mistakes of goal setting below for an understanding as to why this occurs.
Inability to react to opportunities
Very often entrepreneurs can become so focused on the goal that they miss out on other opportunities. It is important to have a balance of goal setting whilst also the flexibility to take advantage of other opportunities in your field.
The key to overcome this drawback is to regularly check in to make sure you are making the progress you desire to the goal.
Out of balance
Entrepreneurs enjoy stretching themselves and their organisation with large goals.
The issue that occurs for many people, and you too may have experienced this, is that you can become out of balance in life. You work yourself to the bone to achieve the goals but it costs you relationships, health and even money in the process.
If you feel out of balance and overwhelmed with goal setting, then make sure to create systems and habits to allow you to maintain balance whilst stretching yourself.
8 Key Steps to Effective Goal Setting
1. Create your long term Goal
The first step is to set long term Goals for your business that you want to achieve. We must have clarity on the destination before you can start to make smaller goals to move you in that direction.
2. Big why
Having a goal is one thing, following through and making it happen is a whole different ballgame. The big why are all the reasons as to why you want to achieve this goal and make it happen. It is the fuel in the car that keeps it going. Most people fail to achieve what they want because they miss this step.
3. Set your power year sprint
Once you know the long term goal, now it is time to set a short term power year. This will include 1 major and a few minors for you to focus on over the coming 3 months.
4. Capture your ideas
Write down all the ideas you and your team have that can help you achieve your major goal. You then want to chunk them into relevant groups of tasks for your team or yourself to efficiently complete.
5. Prioritise
After you have a clear idea of all the tasks you have available, you want to prioritise so that you are being efficient with your time. Clarify which tasks are most important to be done and in what order.
6. Take action
After you do this, immediately take action on one thing that starts to move you and your team towards your goal. The reason I say immediately is that it starts to build momentum. A plan without action will always be a dream. Make sure to hit the ground running!
7. Measure progress
This is another step often missed by entrepreneurs as they focus on the business. Remember that you can set a goal, but if you only check in once every 3 months, you could fall off track. The more important the goal is, the more you want to measure to make sure you are on track.
8. Re-evaluate
As you start to move forward you must adapt your initial plan depending on the results that occur. You may shift priorities or have more ideas. The key is to evaluate on a weekly or at the very least monthly basis, to see if you are on track towards achieving your goal.
There are actually 2 other steps missing here that most entrepreneurs miss out on. Download the goal setting template below to find out what they are.
Biggest mistakes when setting goals
1. Create too many SMART Goals
Avoid setting SMART goals all the time in your organisation. Too many SMART goals often cause an imbalance in your organisation and your life. I have seen too many business owners’ set multiple goals, yet make little progress towards completing them.
Set a clear focus for each quarter and align your employees around this central theme. For an analogy to explain what I mean here check out: what chess can teach us about goals in life.
2. Analysis paralysis
Analysis paralysis occurs when you analyse so many options that you become paralysed in your decision-making. Nothing gets done and instead you become overwhelmed with too many options. It is of fundamental importance to not become overwhelmed in setting goals in your organisation.
If you feel overwhelmed frequently, then check out: why entrepreneur’s feel overwhelmed in life.
You want to become a leader in decision making which means making decisions fast and changing them slow.
3. Misalignment
If you want success but you fear failure, you have a misalignment. This means you are taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back. This is the number 1 reason as to why entrepreneurs don’t have the success they desire.
If you feel resistance to following through on your goals, then make sure to check out the 8 lifestyle blocks for entrepreneurs to find out what is stopping you moving forward in the fastest way.
Lifestyle blocks included here.
4. Harmful habits
We can have the best of intentions yet if our habits are pulling us back then we can’t achieve what we want as entrepreneurs. You must make sure that the habits you have day to day are helping you achieve what you desire in your business. Make sure you have atleast 3 of the Top 7 habits of productive entrepreneurs
5. Lack of Focus
Have you ever set a goal, but a few weeks later become distracted by another option to improve your business?
Perhaps you tried to do both of these things or even more options at the same time. This is incredibly common which is why having a clear focus for 3 months at a time can help you stay sustainably on track.
6. Low energy
Having low energy is a huge issue when it comes to following through and achieving goals. You have the best of intentions yet in the mid-afternoon your energy is low. You can’t seem to focus and you struggle to concentrate.
If this is something you struggle with, then you will want to learn how to maintain energy throughout the day as an entrepreneur?
7. Unrealistic goals
If the goal is unrealistic for your team then they will be less motivated to follow through. For all the goals that you set, make sure that you have a realistic plan to help you achieve it. As you work with your teams you can always work with them to set goals that are more realistic whilst also stretching them to achieve more.
8. Negative emotional state
Your emotional state is the foundation to help keep you sustainably on track whilst inspiring your time. Make sure that you have a routine to support you in maintaining a great emotional state throughout the day.
If you become angry easily or stressed easily then look into creating a morning routine that supports you emotionally each day.
For a few examples of great morning routines of entrepreneur’s check out this article: 5 morning routines of successful entrepreneurs
Time to get moving!
Now if you are feeling a little overwhelmed with all the different aspects of goals setting, don’t worry. Goal setting is an art that takes time to master, start by setting and achieving goals that are most important to your business.
With 90% of start ups failing, entrepreneurship can be a roller coaster of a journey. While the risk is high the reward is what draws people to it. My guess is that you are an entrepreneur who is willing to take the risk in order to create the freedom you desire.
You may want to have some support on your journey to help you achieve your goals even faster in the coming year. If you haven’t already do check out the Entrepreneur Lifestyle Accelerator as one of the best resources out there to help you create the goals you desire in the fastest and most sustainable way possible.
