Best Daily Practice for Setting Goals

What do you want your business to look like this quarter? What about in a year? Or 10 years from now? 

Once you know what you want, how do you start to make it happen? Are there things you can do every day to get closer to creating the kind of company you dream about?

Ron Macklin has led teams that set nine world records and won dozens of customer satisfaction awards. Twice Ron has created a growth culture responsible for increasing profits by $20 million, and has led seven different groups from worst- to best-in-class. Today, Ron is the founder of MacklinConnection where his purpose is changing the world through helping others create relationships that matter. 

Here, Ron discusses the daily practices he implements in order to achieve goals.

What is goal setting? 

Ron Macklin: Goal setting is just choosing where you want to be. Once you define what your goal is, you have to figure out your direction to set a goal.  What is immediately out in front of you? And then choose what it looks like at the end.

What practices help you achieve your goals?

Ron Macklin: First, you determine your goals. And this is just choosing what you want. But then how do you start to make those goals come to life? 

Because I don't trust my own memory, I have to keep my goals in front of me. We're language oriented beings. We connect to whatever is around us. So put those goals up in front of you. Write them down and hang them up.

Then, speak them into the world. Otherwise they don't exist. Thoughts don't change the world. Speaking it into the world creates a new world.

I had a brilliant thought the other day, and I didn't have anybody to talk to, and now I can't remember what it was. It hasn't come back to me, and it may never come back. And I'm using this as an example to remember to go sit down and record the idea as soon as it happens.

So writing your goals down as soon as you choose them is the first step. Then make sure you have that writing in front of you every day. And then talk about them. Share them with other people. Speak them out loud to yourself. This will start making your goals real. 

What works for goal setting?

Ron Macklin: What works for goal setting is making your goal a story in the world. And this means talking about it, sharing it.

What doesn't work is writing it on your computer or in a book and then putting it on the shelf. Those things don't work.

You need dialogue around your goals. You need people talking about what it is. That's what works.

Kara Large: So you have to start living it?

‍Ron Macklin: You have to start living it out. And living it out comes from holding the story about your goal and focusing on it. 

I think the best example is the orange cone theory.

Cindy tells a story that she was doing a defensive driving course for the military. She was going through this whole course hitting every cone. And finally the instructor said, "Captain, are you focusing on the cones? Don't focus on the cones. Focus on the space beside them. Focus on where you want the car to go."

The same is true for riding horses. Teaching people to ride a horse, you tell them, "Don't look at the horse. Look at where you want to go because the horse can see where you're looking." 

Look at where you want to go, and the horse will know where you want to go, because he can see you and see where he's going.

And that's how we get people to set goals and get them out there in the world. For daily achievement, just keep your focus, keep telling the story of your goals. Do it a lot.

At one job I worked, one of our goals was 0 lost time injuries. In other words, we didn't want anybody to get hurt on our job sites where they could not go to work the next day. We went 5 million man hours without a lost time injury. We talked about it every day. “What's our goal?” When you talk about it every day, then it's your story in your head.

It's like being on a small plane and watching the pilot land the plane. The pilot has a whole set of checklists to do that. If I look over, and he's reading the checklist, I'm freaking out. An experienced pilot doesn't use the checklist. Landing the plane is embodied to them. The only way to make it embodied is to put it in your head over and over and over again. Then, when you go to land, you'll know what to do.  But the creation of the checklist is what puts it in their head.

What can you do every day to achieve your goals?

What does a successful business look like for you? Is it centered around profit? Does it involve caring for your employees? Are there people lined out the door to work for you? If you know how you want your business to look, what steps can you take to make it happen?

Once you have defined your overall goal, you can map out how to get there, knowing that you can always change course if you need to. Write out your goals. Speak them out into the world and share them with others. Direct your focus on what you want. These steps will enable you to start to see your vision become a reality.

If this article helped you better understand how you can empower yourself to achieve your business goals each day, you might be interested in our executive coaching programs. Our executive coaches are leaders in their fields and have transformed companies through their visionary leadership styles. To learn more about how to work with us, you can schedule a consultation.

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