Managing Project Goals
Everyone has something they want to accomplish in life. For some the goal is to become rich, for others it's to find love, or maybe the goal is just to pivot in their business However, sometimes the goals seem so big that it becomes difficult to find a way to achieve it. You can say, “I want to launch an online course,” all you want, but if you don’t start placing your knowledge into a defined and well outlined course, you’ll never launch that product!
How do you start? Creating a course seems easy until you have to actually try and plan it, and unfortunately the same holds true with lots of other goals as well. If you don’t know where to start, you’re much more likely to give up on it and accept failure. Or, you’ll push it off and tell yourself you will get around to it until it becomes that never. Luckily, breaking a big goal into smaller, much more manageable micro-goals is much easier than it seems.
Breaking a big goal into small SMART goals is vital in ensuring you achieve the end goal. If we use creating a course as an example, one of the first smart goals would be to come up with an idea! It seems self explanatory, but a lot of people tend to skip or rush over this part. Create the idea, but then flesh it out; do you know all the course chapters? If your goal is to create a new product for your business, the first smart step would be to determine what you would like to offer and why. Then you’d determine if your audience would be receptive to that product based on data.
Another important aspect of these SMART goals is that you are consistently completing them. Completing one small goal (or working towards completing one) nearly every day is vital towards completing the overall mission. It’s perfectly healthy to take breaks, in fact I highly encourage it, but being consistent with the small goals will help you stay motivated to complete the main goal.
Determination is going to play a big part in making sure you’re consistent in making progress. If you’re not determined to complete the goal, a lack of motivation will start to set in and you’re less likely to complete your goals. Before using this method, take the time to check in with yourself! Is right now a good time for you to embark on a journey to complete this goal? Are you truly passionate about achieving this? If you’re not, trying to force yourself into doing it will make you tired and start to even dislike the idea of achieving said goal!
Dreaming big is an amazing thing, but don’t bite off more than you can chew. You can’t climb a mountain in a minute, but you can scale an anthill! If you’re consistently taking your mission one step at a time, eventually, you’ll reach the top of the mountain.