Michael Gerber in his book the E-Myth Revisited suggests that entrepreneurs need to think about what the business is going to be in five, 10 or 25 years down the road and start building towards that.
However the road to success is fairly simple.
As the business owner you need to start with defining what that success looks like for you. A simple way to do this is to take time and write it down. Many business owners never take this time because they believe that they know what they want and know how to get it.
Research and science both show that by writing it down success is increased significantly. In an important study by Dr. Gail Mathews of Dominican University of over 260 business owners and professionals in the U.S. and worldwide, there was a significant difference in the success rate between people who just stated their goals and those who actually wrote their goals down and provided weekly updates to a friend.
Study participants were broken down into five separate groups:
Group No. 1 just thought of their business related goals that they hoped to accomplish over the period of the next month and rated those goals in terms of difficulty, importance and the resources they had and needed to accomplish the goal.
Group No. 2 did the same but wrote their goals down.
Group No. 3 wrote the goals and their action steps towards the goals.
Group No. 4 wrote the goals down and their action steps and sent these commitments to a friend.
Group No. 5 went further than any of the other groups and sent a weekly progress report to a friend.
So what happened next is what typically happens to all business owners when they just think of goals, but don't make concrete plans to follow through.
By the end of the four week study, only 43 per cent of Group No. 1 had accomplished their goals or were half way to completing them.
Compare this to the business owners in Group No. 4 , who wrote down their goals, made action steps and told a friend about them. This group accomplished or more than half completed 64 per cent of their goals.
Finally if we look at group No. 5 we see that a whopping 76 per cent of goals were actually completed or halfway there. This not only goes to show that writing down goals works but also that being accountable to those goals can make a significant difference. Thus another argument for having a business coach.
There is some additional science to writing things down with the intention to follow through and many books have been written in this area.
Wayne Dyer made himself famous by focusing specifically in this area. The science I am talking about is referring to your RAF or reticular activating system in your brain.
Setting your intent is quite a powerful way of concentrating your brain to ensure that you are able to stay focused on this goal.
Writing the goals down and actions steps that accompany that goal can significantly improve your willingness and focus on getting that done. It is in this way that you trigger your brain to help you follow through on your intentions and have higher likelihood of success.
One thing I do with all my clients is early on in the relationship to get them to write down their goals. I am often amazed to hear that many of these successful people have never taken the time to write down what they want to be doing one year, five years or 15 years down the road.
Like most people they are floating along in life hoping to get somewhere without realizing what the somewhere is. The amazing fact is that this goal setting or planning doesn't need to take a lot of time. In fact it's been said that whether you take three days or three minutes to write down your goals that there will not be much significant difference.
I believe it is best that when writing down your goals start a long way out. For example usually I start by asking my clients to write down what they want in 15 years.
Then we do the exercise again for five years out and finally down to one year.
I ask them to start with sentences that "I am" or " I have." For example: "I have $30,000 more dollars in the bank;" "I have paid off my line of credit;" "I am going on regular weekly dates with my wife;" or "I am going to the gym three days a week.
To get the best results, we want to make the goals SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
It's no use writing down goals that we know we are never going to achieve as we are setting ourselves up for failure.
However unless we dream a little we will never have anything to set our sights on and achieve. Typically we do the session focusing on a number of areas including physical, spiritual, relationships, financial, and business. Some people like to lump business and financial together, however I tend to feel that goals for your business can be significantly different from your financial goals. However, whatever works best for you, go with that.
Dave Fuller is a Certified Professional Business Coach in Prince George and can be reached at [email protected] or 250-617-7467
