Best Results Organizing

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. In 1953, academic researchers interviewed graduating seniors at Yale University to quantity how many had created specific, written goals for their future. The answer: 3%. In 1973, researchers polled the surviving members of Yale’s Class of ’53 and — lo and beyond — the 3% with goals had accumulated more personal financial wealth than the other 97% of the class combined!

It’s a great, motivating story. Build it and they will come; write it down and it will happen. The only problem is, it isn’t true. None of it — no survey was done of Yalies, or at any other of the Ivies, in 1953 or twenty years later. But for decades, productivity consultants and business writers kept hailing that study, cross-quoting one another to reference its existence. It took another 23 years, until Fast Company researched (and debunked) the story by tracing every reference to the tale, and questioning both Yale’s administration and the Class of ’53. Nada.

If the study never happened, does that mean that writing down your goals won’t make you richer than all of your classmates or colleagues? And what if your life goals aren’t financial in nature, and you want to be an Olympic gold medal winner, a published author or a happily married parent with a Martha-Stewart-cloaked-in-Pinterest lifestyle?

Dominican University of California Professor Gail Matthews set out to find an answer. She recruited 267 participants, aged 23 to 72, from a wide variety of businesses, organizations, and networking groups, both in the United States and abroad, to examine how achieving professional goals can be influenced by pro-active behaviors.

Matthews’ findings? The three key ingredients to achieving professional goals are:

1. Writing down your goals
2. Committing to goal-directed actions
3. Getting accountability from outside yourself, including detailing your goals to a friend or colleague and providing (weekly) updates on your progress

No big surprises here, and we can probably extrapolate to figure that these behaviors can help achieve goals outside the professional realm. But, how do you put it all into action?

CREATE YOUR GOALS

You’ve probably heard that motivational experts encourage setting SMART goals, where the mnemonic stands for goals that are:

Specific—Don’t merely plan to sell “more” or serve your clients “better.” What do you want to accomplish? Where, why, how, and with whom will you take each step? Instead of “losing weight,” might your goal be losing 5% of your current weight? Specificity of goals improves your ability to visualize, and you’ll be more inspired to take the necessary steps to achieve each goal if you can picture the intricate details of which it’s composed.

Measurable—How will you know you’ve achieved a goal completely? Can you track, record or log your progress? (And have you come up with a strategy to do exactly that?) Think beyond general hopes and dreams. How much, in dollars or by percentages, do you want your business revenue (or household savings) to increase next quarter? How many speaking engagements will you secure each month for the coming year? Quantify your goals: How many? How much? How often? By when?

Attainable—It’s fine to dream big, but research shows that always setting goals beyond your reach eventually leads to disappointment. Set goals high enough to be aspirational, but modest enough to be achievable. Consult your formal and informal advisors, your employees, clients and colleagues, your friends and family, and ask for a reality check on whether the goals you’ve selected fit the economic environment, the community, the family schedule and your actual or anticipated resources.

Relevant—Goals can be precisely defined, measured, achieved, and timed without being relevant to your ultimate purpose. Is your goal aligned with your other aspirations and strategies? You’ll maintain your motivation and get more support from others if the goal fits the bigger picture.

Time Sensitive—Clarify goals to identify when you plan to achieve them. Set intermediate benchmarks, so rather than setting yourself up for failure, each smaller goal creates a stepping-stone.

Organized SMART goals are superior to random dreams, but to attain ideal levels of productivity, Paper Doll encourages you to take the next step. Become a SMARTY.

Yours—It does you, your company and your customers, your family and your club or group, no good if you resolve to meet goals solely to reflect the latest marketing buzzwords or social trends. Make a concerted effort to set goals that reflect the aspirations that prompted you to enter your profession, start your company, create a family or begin a project in the first place.

So, now you’re a SMARTY! Congratulations! In business and in life, though, being a good old boy is no longer enough, so we need to move beyond being a “smarty pants” with goals. It’s time to get in touch with your feminine side. Take that smart start to the next level with goals that are:

Stretchy—Do you want to meet everyone’s expectations, or do you want to exceed them?  In Annie Hall, Woody Allen said, “Relationships are like sharks. They have to keep moving forward or they die.” Keep your ‘goal relationship sharks’ alive and well. Keep stretching forward!

Knowledge-based—Follow gut instinct, but commit to those SMART goals based on research and strong reasoning. Specificity moves you beyond the vague; pinpoint what previous businesses or role models have accomplished successfully. Make your goals measurable by basing projections on recorded successes and failures – your own and those of others who have achieved what you want. To know if a goal is attainable, due diligence is key. Do your homework.

Inspiring—Breathe life into the soul of your goals. Instead of just saying you’ll increase revenue by $3000 in April, why not peg the goal to a reward for yourself, your employees, and vendors – even your customers. For personal goals for your health or home, make sure they resonate with your spouse, your kids and your friends. How can you motivate everyone so your success breeds more success?

Revolutionary—Foment rebellion against whatever isn’t working. Think Jerry McGuire’s mission statement!

Fire off an “Email Read ‘Round the World” and maybe a statue will be erected in your honor!

Tantalizing—Boring jargon doesn’t spur action. If you can’t inspire yourself, how will you motivate your troops to support you?  Define your goals so they make you salivate as if someone walked by with a chocolate cheesecake. Write your goals with colorful language so you’re eager to advance and post them where you will see them and be stimulated to act each day.

Be a SMARTY SKIRT. Because Smarty Pants are so last century.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Now that you’ve got the content of your goals squared away, take Professor Matthews’ research to heart. Write your goals down and commit to goal-oriented actions. But how should you write them? In Too Much of a Good Thing: The Benefits of Implementation Intentions Depend on the Number of Goals, a study published by Amy N. Dalton and Stephen A. Spiller in the Journal of Consumer Research, found that the more competing goals you have, and the more detailed your implementation plan is, the less successful you’re likely to be. And that makes sense — as summarized:

…the benefits of implemental planning for attaining a single goal do not typically extend to multiple goals. Instead, implemental planning draws attention to the difficulty of executing multiple goals, which undermines commitment to those goals relative to other desirable activities and thereby undermines goal success. 

So, don’t write a bible, which will just psych you out and make it all seem too hard. Focus on one main goal at a time, determine what steps (and in what order) you will commit to implementing them, and write it all down.

Once you write your goals, don’t tuck them away in your musty Yale 🙂 trunk. Place them somewhere that will trigger you to think about them often. For example:

• In your journal
• On the bathroom mirror
• On the refrigerator door
• Clipped to the front of your Tickler File
• On the wall beyond/behind your computer
• On the start-up screen for your computer
• On the lock screen for your phone or tablet
• On the whiteboard in your office
• On a vision board on your wall or bulletin board
• On a digital pinboard (like on Pinterest) that reflects visual representations of your goal

Consistency is key. Don’t let your goals become faint whispers or faded wallpaper. Use your reminder system (online prompts, phone alarms, Siri, etc.) to review your main goals every day. In the morning. At the end of the day. When you’re stuck. When you’ve succeeded at reaching the next benchmark.

When you plan your schedule and block groups of similar tasks, particularly when you’re getting dragged down — ask yourself, is this helping me to move forward to my goals?

Track your goals — pay attention to how consistently you perform the activities you’ve assigned yourself to achieve those goals. Whether you go high-tech with an app like Lift or prefer the classic Seinfeldian Don’t Break the Chain approach, tracking your progress lets you savor successes and figure out if and where you’ve gone astray so that you can press “reset” and start again.

How will you reach your goals for 2015 and beyond?

Sections of this post were excerpted from 57 Secrets for Organizing Your Small Business,

available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iTunes bookstore, Kobo (Canada) and other online retailers, in paperback, Kindle, Nook and other electronic formats. For more information on the book, please visit the 57 Secrets page.