If you are in business — any kind of business — no doubt you’ve been encouraged to set goals. We’ve heard some of the basic premises on goal setting, such as:

• Write down the goal
• Make sure the goal is measurable
• Place a deadline or timeline on your goal

But so often, we find that are goals fall flat. We begin a horrible cycle of not knowing what to do to get results, trying everything to get results, and giving up on getting results. Admit it — you’ve found yourself here before. I know I have.

For as many things as we have been taught about goal setting, we’ve not been taught about why we aren’t reaching our goals. More times than not, our goals are not reached for one simple reason — they are constructed around other people being involved in the achieving of our goal.

Let me give you an example: You have a business that produces a product or service. You have a goal to make more money, which means you have a goal to produce more sales. To achieve this goal, you calculate how much you have to sell, and you begin working to market or promote your goods or services.

Goal frustration arises when the amount of people you needed to buy your product is less than desired. However, you can’t force people to buy. This is where the feeling of hopelessness creeps in, starts to take over our ambition, and our drive to keep pushing for the goal dies.

Let me challenge you to think a different way — don’t set a goal that is contingent on other people. Set a goal on activities you can control and let the results drive the sales, income or business you are looking for.

So, in our example, if instead of setting a goal to sell a specific amount of product, and getting upset or panicking when those buyers don’t come around, set a goal on an activity you can control. What if you set a goal to introduce your product or service to five new people this week? Or what if you set a goal to exchange your business card with 10 new business women during the week?

These are goals that can be reached, will driving business to your door, and will give you a simple “win” to propel you to keep going forward!

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