How Important is Goal Setting?

2024 is upon us. Cue the classic ‘So what are your New Year’s resolutions?’ question that is bound to be thrown around more than once at breakfast on 1^st January. But when it comes to setting yourself goals for the year, is there anything wrong with that?

From a personal perspective, goals can be anything from reading x amount of books to training for that marathon you have always wanted to enter. Some people take these seriously and some people take a more relaxed approach.

However, when it comes to setting goals for the year for your business, it is important to take the more serious approach.  Whether you want to increase sales by 15% each quarter, start an affiliate programme or launch a new product, setting clear, strategic goals may just be one of the keys to your success. But why is it important to set them? Here are my top reasons why goal setting is beneficial.

1. Goals set a clear focus on what you want to achieve

It is all well and good saying that you want to improve the performance of your business, but without a goal that defines exactly what you want the outcome to be, any efforts to improve could easily be lost.

We have all heard of the SMART goal setting method, so I won’t go into detail, but setting a specific and measurable goal will help shape the direction of your business.

2. Goals help set effective actions

Having a specific goal set out then gives you the power to plan effective and meaningful steps. Without a clear goal in mind, you might end up completing random actions that would have no impact on your desired outcome, resulting in wasted time and resources.

From experience in a completely different industry, working backwards seems to do the trick. Identifying what you want to achieve and then identifying what needs to be done to get there in reverse order helped set a clear path to success.

3. Shared goals bring the team together

Having company-wide goals gives your whole team something to strive for. You will find that a team who knows exactly what is desired will pull together to achieve positive results. Ensuring that goals are communicated clearly will help prevent any errors or dips in productivity.

Having regular, yet meaningful, check-ins to see how goals are progressing will help keep your goals on track. Being on-hand to offer guidance and support also goes a very long way.

4. Goals keep you motivated!

We’ve all been in random situations in life where if we don’t know what we are doing, focus and motivation starts to fade. Having a defined goal helps bring attention and focus to the job in hand.

5. Goals give you opportunities to reflect

Setting goals can also be used as a powerful way to reflect. If you don’t quite achieve a goal within your desired timeframe, it opens up the floor to a range of self-reflective questions that present more opportunities in the future.

Questions that could arise might include:

• Why didn’t we achieve that goal?
• Do we need additional resources?
• Could we change our strategy?
• Where do we need to allocate more budget?

Overall, setting goals can be majorly beneficial to keeping the strategic direction of your business on track. However, goals need to be revisited regularly with opportunities to reflect and adapt based on goal progression.