Why Set Goals? Do Goals Matter?

I didn’t set goals when I first started my practice in 1998, but I did reincorporate them into my business plan several years later.  That, along with a new marketing plan, and my business started to consistently grow each and every year, including these past two years.

So, we know that goals matter, but exactly why do they matter?

How will you develop a marketing plan to promote your latest product or service if you don’t know how many you need to sell to be profitable? How will you know whether you need new software for your network if you’re not sure what you’re trying to accomplish? How can you evaluate two possible courses of action if you don’t know what the end goal is?

As it’s been said in math classes since the beginning of time (almost), the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But before you can create that line, you need the two points – a beginning (where you are now) and an end (your goal). Put simply, goals give you an endpoint. And once you have an endpoint, you can figure out how to get there.

Here are some of the benefits I believe goals provide us!

• Greater focus:  Knowing your goals allows you to concentrate on your highest priorities. When you’re aware of your goals, you can move forward and stop worrying about the little things.
• Efficient allocation of resources:  When you know what you’re aiming for, you are less likely to waste time, money, or effort.
• Ability to measure progress:  Goals make it easy to know if you’re on the right track or not. You can easily measure your progress and determine where you are in the process. That’s invaluable for making changes and adjustments along the way.
• Lower stress:  Stress and anxiety often result from not knowing what you’re supposed to be doing or where you should be concentrating your efforts. Goals lead to clarity of purpose, which leads to lower stress.
• Feelings of accomplishment:  If you don’t know where you’re headed, you never know when you’ve arrived, and you can never celebrate your success! Setting goals first allows you to know when you’ve done what you intended to do.

Now that you know why goals are important, next week we’ll discuss some of the biggest goal-setting mistakes people make.

So, what scares you about setting goals?  What challenges are you facing in achieving your goals if you are setting them?  Please leave a comment below and we’ll talk! 😉

Jeannine Grich, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker, and VA Business Coach, specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE article,  “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?” Visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: http://vabizcoach.com/contact-us/.