Level Up Your Goals: Increase Your Chances for Success with These 7 Essential Elements

⬆️ Mindset Shift:

As high-performing Operators, our achievement percentage goes up significantly when we put the right amount of rigor in planning and architecting goals. The key is using a proven ‘Goal Setting Architecture’ structure. Applying the right amount of upfront intentionality and discipline paired with excellence in execution is essential to completing goals successfully.

📋 Architecting Your Goals for Success:

Consider this important quote:

Writing down goals is foundational. At the same time, much more is needed for consistent achievement, so our winning percentage far exceeds 42%. 

As an Operator, I have been relentlessly curating and testing the latest research and frameworks on how to best structure work and personal goals to maximize the chances for success - what I call ‘GoalSetting Architecture.’

I would like to share these findings so you can make progress faster.

First, I want to share 3 top goal-setting mistakes to avoid:

• Setting ‘squishy’ goals that are difficult to measure.

• Not operationalizing the right action through a ‘goal-achieving system.’

• Not taking the time to identify and plan for obstacles and threats.

To zoom out for a minute, what is a goal?

A goal in its simplest state is a ‘completed and measured achievement’ - something of significance defined and accomplished by a certain date. Some would say a goal is a dream written down.

A goal should be uncomfortable to achieve. It must be challenging and realistic. 100% completion of all our goals over each quarter and the year indicates the challenge factor isn't set high enough. Our actual completion percentages should fall around 70% - 90%, reflecting the built-in difficulty of fully reaching each goal. 

Even for the goals that are not fully attained, there is victory. We often overcome certain fears and insecurities, building fortitude and personal growth for what is next.

Next, here is a simple, proven 3-part goal formula:

Referencing the formula, we frame up an ultra-concise achievement definition bound by a date and include why it is worth pursuing.

⚡ PRO TIP: I advocate for a maximum of 3 work-related and 3 personal-related ‘in-flight’ or active goals. Depending on your goal tracking system, I recommend using what I call  ‘stack prioritization’ so the most important goal is at the top of the list, followed by the second in priority and then the third. Finally, I recommend keeping a ‘backlog’ of goals in order of priority. These backlogged goals can be put into flight/action if the original goals have been accomplished. 

Now, let’s dive into 7 essential goal-setting elements to increase your chances for success with your work, team, and personal goals.

1️⃣ Core Values, Purpose & Missions Alignment  

When setting goals do you ask essential questions like:

• Does this goal match my work or personal core values? 

• Is my work or personal purpose in alignment with the goal? 

• Finally, does it clearly support the mission at hand? 

⚡ PRO TIP: Only a rare number of Operators have taken the time to create a set of personal values. If you haven’t framed up your personal core values, I recommend making this your first step.

As core values, purpose, and mission statements act as living waypoints or future markers guiding our behavior, close goal alignment is critical. This way, our goal-achieving actions are calibrated and pointed in the right direction.

2️⃣ Mindset Defined  

This sounds obvious. 

We must believe at our core that we have what it takes to accomplish our goals. This doesn’t mean we have it all figured out up front, as a significant part of goal achievement is handling real-time obstacles and challenging curve balls. 

Therefore, the Elite Operator asks, ‘What key mindset shift do I need to continually remind myself of so I deliver BIG results with my goal?’

What we need is a defined ‘Goal Mindset.’

Here are 5 work and personal Goal Mindset examples:

• Paying down debt goal | I can and will enjoy living with financial discipline.

• Publish a book goal | What I have to teach matters, and it will help others.

• Losing weight goal | I have what it takes to be physically ripped.

• Sales goal | I have the skills to help people realize the value of what I sell.

• Learning goal | I can and will schedule the time to level up my skills.

Framing a Goal Mindset is a foundational goal-achieving step. 

3️⃣ SMART Structure  

Framing your goal is a critical step, and considering all of the goal-structuring frameworks, I keep returning to ‘SMART’ goals.

Your SMART goal naming framework:

7 SMART goal examples:

• ‘Pay off All Credit Card Debt’ | Due Date: 10/31

• ‘Publish My Book’ | Due Date: 11/15

• ‘Weight at 185 with 17% Body Fat’ | Due Date: 12/31

• ‘Break $1 Million in Sales' | Due Date: 9/30

• 'Proficient in Mandarin' | Due Date: 12/15

• '3 Weeks in New Zealand' | Due Date: 7/15

• 'Master RPM & 100% Setup Complete' | Due Date: 4/30

Putting your goals through the SMART framework will increase your chances of success.

4️⃣ Goal Achievement System 

Almost every goal needs an operating system called ‘Goal Drivers.’

Goal drivers ensure the correct ongoing action is taken across a defined period of time to get the goal over the finish line. 

When standing up a Goal Driver, ask ‘What are the key ongoing goal-achieving activities needed to accomplish my goal? ‘

Here are 3 Goal Driver examples:

• [Paying down debt goal] Scheduling 30 minutes each week to use Quicken.

• [Publish a book goal] Setting aside 90 minutes every workday to write.

• [Losing weight goal] 150 minutes of cardio scheduled each week.

Laser-focused Operators know that getting Goal Driver(s) right is the most important aspect of sound goal-setting discipline.

5️⃣ Obstacle, Threat, and Lies Identification  

Another important planning step is asking, ‘What are the threats or obstacles in achieving the goal, and how will each be overcome?’

‘WOOP’ is an effective goal-achieving method developed by Gabriele Oettingen, professor of Psychology at New York University and the University of Hamburg. WOOP stands for ‘Wish-Outcome-Obstacle-Plan.’ Oettingen’s research proves that implementation intentions and actions needed to overcome obstacles are key goal-achieving components. 

Besides obstacles and threats, it is important to ask yourself upfront, ‘What lies might I hear whispered in my ear that may all try to pull me off course—and what is my plan to overcome each?

⚡ PRO TIP: Leverage Generative AI to help identify potential goal-related blockers. Here are the impressive results when I asked Bard - ‘I am a 54-year-old male with a goal to lose 20 pounds next year. What common obstacles, threats, and lies might I experience? Notice the relevant recommendations at the end. 

I invite you to intentionally invest the necessary amount of time outlining expected obstacles, threats, and lies to fortify your goal-achieving readiness.

6️⃣ Reward & Celebration Plan Established  

Few individuals and organizations celebrate well when accomplishing challenging goals. Time to flip the script. When a goal is achieved, having an established and suitable reward or celebration plan builds goal-achieving momentum. 

3 power questions to ask:

• In a way that honors the accomplishment, how will I reward myself or my team when the goal is achieved?

• Who will be involved in the celebration?

• How can I make the celebration or reward stand out and be memorable? 

⚠️ HEADS UP: For a simple personal weight loss-related goal, it wouldn’t make sense to celebrate the achievement with a large slice of double-chocolate cake. Matching the reward with the weight loss goal, a more suitable reward could be new AirPods to improve the quality of workouts.

Defining the celebration plan or reward for your goal upfront can help propel you forward in the ‘messy middle’ of goal achievement. 

7️⃣ Quarterly Assessment  

Breaking goals into 90-day time periods is a proven way to achieve goals with a higher success rate. Finding a book written in the last decade that doesn’t advocate for 90-day goal setting would be challenging. 

90 days is a time horizon we can get our heads around. 

12-month time horizons often seem too far out into the future. However, 90-day targets better focus our attention on a goal's beginning, middle, and end.

The best practice is to simply break down goals into ‘90-Day Mission Goals’ - goals that often support a mission of a longer time period. By creating a ‘learning milestone’ rhythm using 90-day increments, you and/or your team can better adjust expectations for the next 90-Day Mission Goals.

For a proven 90-Day Mission Goal structure, similar to Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), the 3-part format I recommend for 90-Day Goal Missions is:

1. Objective of My Goal Mission:

2. Measurable Desired Outcomes (1-3):

3. Biggest Threat(s) for Achieving My Goal Mission:

Example…

Take a top-line annual revenue goal. If historical data is available, the team may find a somewhat even spread when breaking down the annual target across four 90-Day Mission Goals.

As the sales team puts in the needed 'Goal Drivers’ with leading indicators established for the number of inbound leads, outbound calls, and demo meetings needed to hit the goal, the team can learn, assess, and better adjust future 90-Day Mission Goals when Q1 results are in.

✈️ To land this plane, invest 11 seconds to complete this one-question form to get the no-cost Goal-Setting Architecture Worksheet to help guide your efforts. 

💥 Operational Action:

Orchestrate your goal-achieving momentum by forwarding the link to this post to your team. 

🔎 Want to Go Deeper?

Request getting the  ‘Goal Setting Architecture’ PDF worksheet. This content is also featured in my Productivity Accelerator. 

💡 What Do You Think?

Consider leaving a comment or a question so others can benefit and learn. 

🛠️ Tools Mentioned:

No Tools were mentioned, but using Google & Word Docs, Trello, and Notion are useful in creating goal reporting and measurement systems. 

☁️ AI Content Disclaimer:

Bard offered some help with part of the subject line and with the elaboration on obstacles, threats, and lies mentioned above. Everything else is 100% human-created content.

✅ Mind Break:

Since you made it this far, to wrap up and for a quick break, check out GoPro: Best of 2023. STRONG.

🗓️ What’s Coming Up Next:

Next week, be on the lookout for my top AI prompts. 

Here’s to you and your team’s unstoppable goal achievement,

Steve Kahle |  ELITE OPERATORS

🔵 P.S.

P.S. If you find value, consider signing up for The Elite Operator Report if you haven’t already. I encourage you to share my content with others, which is a great way to help me build a growing community of elite operators. Also, check out my no-cost resources, like the Ideal Recurring Week Mini-Course. You can also apply for my next Productivity Accelerator, become a paid subscriber, or recommend me for executive coaching, operational and technology consulting, or speaking opportunities like this interview called Time Architecture, Transition from Stressed, and Distracted to Focused.

You can also contact me directly on LinkedIn or through this contact form.