By Bridgette Beal
I must confess, I’ve never been a goal setter. I have friends who set amazing, extravagant goals and achieve them. Not me. I’m more of a work-hard-each-day-and-see-what-happens kind of person. I’ve had successes. I built two businesses but stopped short of anything really big. I was busy with my day job, my side hustle, my volunteering, and just living. Goals have not really been part of my process.
Then I hired Allison Farste. She quickly became my right hand in our one-on-one meetings. Alison talked about her goals for the next year and how I could help her achieve them. As a new manager, I saw the value in this and included those ideas in my one-on-ones with others on my team. I also learned that Allison had much more to share. At the time, she was a young, single mom with a desire to do more than just exist. She set objectives and worked to attain them. Ten years later, she’s achieved many of those goals and is further along than she ever thought she would be. Now she’s working on a fresh set to conquer.
I’ve long appreciated Allison’s enthusiasm and professionalism and especially her can do spirit!
I’m always looking for ways to inspire and mentor my team. I saw an opportunity and asked Allison to put together a Goal Setting presentation. My mind came alive when we put it to the test. Suddenly, I was thinking and dreaming. A tracking form included as a handout exploded into something pretty cool. A collaborative goal setting workshop was born. I couldn’t wait for Allison to give this presentation to our team.
We set our Team Meeting aside for the Goal Setting workshop. It went beautifully. My mind ticked away with ideas and inspiration. We must share this with our Toastmasters Club!
Please join us on this journey to learn how easy it is to set goals and achieve them. That’s the most important part… achievement. I won’t lie to you, there’s work involved. But there’s also a lot of dreaming and excitement!
Step one: Brain Dump
Spend some time — several days, even — writing out everything you want to do. Be crazy, be wild, dream big! Don’t tell yourself NO. Nothing is off limits. Take your time, there’s no hurry. Build a big, beautiful list of dreams, and we’ll show you how to get there.
Grab a piece of paper or a Word document and start dreaming.
Write down every idea that comes into your mind.
Every dream, every goal you might want to accomplish.
This is not the time to set boundaries.
Right now, anything is possible and doable.
It may take several sessions to build your Brain Dump, but the time will be well spent.
Now sit back and review your list. Pretty amazing, right?
Have you seen those people who start with a paperclip and keep trading until they have a house? Anything is possible if you are willing to do the work.
Join us next time when we unpack Step 2: SMART Goals!
