7 Days to Becoming a More Confident Leader

Day 2 – Set a Goal

Welcome back! Today is Day 2 of becoming a more confident leader. Yesterday you ended the day with reflecting on 3 successes that you had for the day. Today we are going to work on setting a goal that will help you to experience even more success. There is a LOT of information around about the importance of goal setting and yet many leaders fail to set goals for themselves and to encourage those they lead to do the same. Why?

Why We Fail to Set Goals

There are many excuses, but they usually boil down to a few simples reasons:

We don’t know how to set goals
Fear – We are afraid to set goals because then we might not reach them
We have failed so many times in the past that we would just rather not keep failing

Do you ever wonder why some people are so successful in life and business and others struggle so much? Many times we try to justify why someone is able to achieve more than we are. We like to reason that they just have more talent than us, more money than us, or they are smarter than us. But the truth is – the successful people in life are those that have goals and are working hard to meet them. Achieving your goals, business or personal, is not going to just happen to you.

The good news is, goal setting is a skill that can be developed. It is not something that some people have and others don’t. If you have struggled in the past with goal setting or achieving your goals, all is not lost.

Change Your Focus

Working without a goal is like shooting an arrow without a target. You did something. The arrow went somewhere. But, did it go where you wanted it to go or where you needed it to go? When you are shooting an arrow at a target you have a way to measure your progress. If you hit the target dead in the center of the bullseye, then awesome, you reached your goal. You can then decide to try it again or from a further distance. But, if you miss the center (or the target altogether) you are able to start seeing the steps you need to take to hit the target. Maybe you need to aim higher, lower, left, or right. But, without a target, you never know how you are doing or what adjustments need to be made.

The same is true in the business world and in life. When you are leading others you need to have goals for yourself and your team. If not, you are working, but how do you know if you are accomplishing what you wanted to do?

Setting goals helps to build confidence. It allows you to develop processes that lead to creating additional success in your life on a daily basis. And it gives you an easier way to see the success you are having and all that you are accomplishing.

Goal Setting

Some people are better at short-term goals and others are better at long-term goals. It’s the big picture thinking vs. focusing on all the details. If you want to succeed long-term you will need how to do both.

Most people have heard of SMART goal setting, so we aren’t going to dive into too much of that here. The basics are your goal needs to be: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Put it into Action

It’s time to take some action towards creating success and building your confidence. Choose a goal that you want to achieve by the end of this 7 day process and document it. The Spearity app is a great way to set and track your goals, but you can also use paper and pen. Just like with documenting your successes, it is important that you write your goal down.

Then, don’t forget to document 3 successes that you had today. You can go to sleep tonight knowing you have accomplished at least 6 things over the past 2 days. Don’t be afraid to document more than 3 for the day. The important thing is learning to see the success you are having, so the more the merrier. Are you still struggling with seeing your success? How about documenting that you came back for Day 2 and set a goal to work on for the week. Both of those are successes that you didn’t need to do.

People with goals succeed because they know where they’re going. – Earl Nightingale