Do your personal goals align with your daily behaviors?
It’s a trickier question than you might imagine. The dictionary defines behavior – one of the three sides of David Sandler’s famous Success Triangle -- as: “The actions or reactions of persons under specified circumstances.”
If we apply this definition to the selling arena, it seems pretty straightforward -- at first. The actions and reactions, obviously, are your daily activities. However, it’s the “under specified circumstances” part of this definition that sometimes causes confusion.
Your circumstances are the set of conditions defined by your goals. Your goals establish the framework within which your daily activities take place. Without goals, you are “playing it by ear,” which can be liberating for a short period of time. Eventually, though, this unfocused behavior (typically inefficient and ineffective) leads to frustration and disappointment, and for some, burnout.
You can define your own circumstances. The goals you pursue can be established by you, not some external element like a sales quota or the expectations of your manager (although neither should be totally ignored). Once you determine exactly what you want out of life, you can identify what it will take to obtain it, and then you can develop an appropriate action plan. Here’s an important hint: If you are only expressing your goal in financial or material terms, you have not yet completed the task of identifying a goal that matters to you on a personal level.
Goals not only establish a path on which to run, but they provide benchmarks with which to measure your progress. Working without clear personal goals that inspire you at a deep place in your soul is like taking a trip to “somewhere,” which you plan to reach “someday,” with the hope (but no certainty) that this will be a desirable place.
- How Many of the Following Statements Apply to Your Professional Goals?
- My goals are expressed in specific terms.
- My goals are in written form.
- I have short-term goals (12 months or less) and long-term goals (three+ years).
- I have assigned target dates for the accomplishment of my goals.
- I have shared my goals with others (e.g., family, friends, and coworkers).
- I have identified the activities required to achieve my goals.
- I have organized the activities into monthly, weekly, and daily behaviors.
- I track both the execution and outcomes of the behaviors on a regular frequent basis (e.g., daily or weekly).
- I share my “tracking” data with someone who holds me accountable to my goals.
- I am absolutely committed to do whatever it takes, consistent with my values, to achieve my goals.
Once you can check all ten of these statements with a “Yes” response, rest assured thatyou will have taken one the most important steps in your own personal development: xxx your goals by aligning them with consistent behaviors that support their fulfillment.