Aiming for BIG Goals

Regardless of what you do, it’s no secret that pretty much anything you accomplish will be a direct result of your motivation. Once you move out of the honeymoon phase of coming up with an idea, and setting up your business, running it on a day-to-day basis is going to take work – and plenty of it.

First, you need vision, which will serve as your primary motivation throughout everything you do. Then you need goals. The traditional method of goal setting is to use the SMART method which dictates that your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-focused, and Time-bound. However, there is another way of thinking call the Locke/ Latham theory of goal setting.

It was first proposed by Professor Edwin Locke of the University of Maryland and Professor Gary Latham of the University of Toronto. The theory states that people who have more difficult – but still attainable – goals, perform better than those who have easier goals.

Broadly, there are either directional or accuracy goals. Directional goals are those that people work toward without understanding the precise steps needed to achieve the end result; these end up being more motivational. Accuracy goals require the meticulous planning of every step to identify the best path to achieve the goal with minimal deviations.

In other words, the more ambitious the goal, the more motivated you will be to achieve it.
Short incremental goals will keep you on track and will give you a steady reminder that you’re making progress. However it’s the big goals that will generate all of your team’s energy. Ambitious goals push you harder than short-term attainable goals simply because you’ll want to test yourselves and see if you can actually reach them.

When an entire team decides that they’re going to aim for these big goals, they harness all their creativity, imagination and ambition to make it happen. The magic happens for entrepreneurs at this motivational sweet spot where the challenge has become intrinsically rewarding.

Are your team aiming “BIG”?

Adapted from an article by Timothy Sykes, entrepreneur.com