You won’t make it across the goal line if you don’t learn how to manage the scrimmage line.
I suggest you utilize the S.M.A.R.T. principle to focus your goals and craft guiding power questions to make your team a winner. Are your goals specific? If you say “someday I want to climb Mount Everest,” you likely won’t. Why? Because someday isn’t specific. Saying, “I want to climb the mountain before I’m sixty,” gives you the specific goal you need to begin your work. How old are you now? How much time will you need to prepare and get the basecamp and begin to acclimate to the altitude of Everest?
How will you measure your goal? This is a vastly different question from the usual focus of: What are your strategies? You need to know how you can capture your progress, because if your goal is not measurable, how will you know if you’re on track? Claiming you want to win a tournament is not as measurable as naming the tournament you will win.
Is your goal attainable? Can you actually climb a mountain or play a tournament? Perhaps you need a coach or a trainer to start getting ready for your win? Do you have a winning team? What do you need to reach your specific goal?
Is your goal realistic?
Identify your strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to your goal. It’s essential at this step that you’re honest and find accurate assessments. Do you or your current team have the necessary talent to succeed? You may be excellent at throwing passes, but if there’s no one to catch it how can you score?
Is your goal fit for this moment? Timely-ness is an important skill to master in all walks of life. If you miss your meeting you may lose the deal. Touchdowns don’t count if the clock runs out. Great ideas may be ahead of or behind important market trends. Is your goal in reach or out of bounds?
How will you move your goal into successful realization? In my book, Ask Power Questions: A Practical Guide to Help You Get What You Want in Business, Life and Friendship,I focus on making meaningful goals through asking powerful questions. You approach your run through the orange cones one step at a time. Be smart, ask power questions, and carefully strategize your goals.
Sandy Nelson is a contributing blogger for JenningsWire Online Magazine.
The online feature magazine, JenningsWire.com, is created by National PR Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book promotion services to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major high impact radio talk interview shows, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media outlets and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers across the country.
