Imad Ghennouni has been a motivational speaker for some 15 years. Having amassed a wealth of experience in the world of business, Imad El Atiki El Ghennouni Mohammed uses his learnings to help others pursue their personal development goals and professional aspirations.
Prior to his current vocation, Imad El Ghennouni Mohammed worked his way up the corporate ladder, specializing in a range of different fields, including financial services, sales, and businesses leadership and strategy. Today, Imad Gennouni draws on his experiences to help others progress their careers, covering aspects such as changing careers, skills development, team cohesion, business mentoring and self-development.
This article will look at goal setting, and why it is so important for business leaders and other professionals to set, achieve and celebrate realistic but challenging goals.
For professionals who want to get ahead, it is important to have a long-term career strategy. Setting and reaching goals is an integral part of success, since without objectives to work towards, an individual will lack direction and focus.
Goal setting helps people to take control over their life’s direction, as well as providing an important benchmark for tracking progress. Successful people set goals then formulate strategies, breaking their objective down into actionable steps. Goal setting is a process that starts with identifying the ideal outcome, then strategizing the steps required to achieve it. To maintain momentum, it is crucial for the individual to set goals that motivate them. After all, if they have little genuine interest in the outcome, the chances of them maintaining focus are slim.
SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Bound. They are clear and well defined, stipulating the individual’s ideal outcome, and defining key dates and other important parameters to measure success by. SMART goals must be achievable, since setting unrealistic goals will lead to demoralization and erode confidence. Nevertheless, goals must also be challenging, offering tangible incentives. Setting timebound goals in writing helps to crystallize objectives, establishing a sense of urgency and leaving the individual no excuse for neglecting those goals.
In goal setting, it is important to focus on one goal at a time. Goal competition occurs where a person has multiple goals, each vying from their time and attention, with progress in one goal hindering them from advancing with another. According to psychologists, goal competition is one of the greatest barriers to realizing goals. When chasing a goal, it is important to pull full focus and energy from other pursuits, pressing pause on other less important activities and concentrating on one goal at a time.
When setting up a goal, weighing up the six W’s helps to be more specific, forcing the individual to consider who their goals involve, what they are trying to achieve, when they want to accomplish it, where the goal will be achieved, why it is important and which resources they will need. This approach forces people to break down goals into manageable steps, identifying who they can go to for support and identifying and solving potential problems early on. Using the six W’s also helps the individual to be extremely specific in establishing SMART goals.
In any project, it is crucial to evaluate the goal-setting process, tracking progress against parameters laid out in the formal plan to identify potential obstacles and issues. Self-reflection is a critical part of self-improvement. After accomplishing their goal, the individual should assess which aspects went well and which could be improved, applying what they have learned to future goal-setting strategies.
Goal setting is an ongoing activity rather than merely a means to an end. It is therefore important to build in reminders to review short and long-term goals, keeping in mind that while the end destination may remain unchanged, the route to achieving this may change significantly along the way.
