Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Setting Effective Goals #2 - Everybody needs somebody

Paperchain
Enlist others to help!
So, you've written your goals down and, in doing so, you've now made a private, unspoken commitment to do something about them. But is this enough to inspire sustained action towards your goals? 

It's important to be honest and to hold yourself accountable and, in 12 years of experience, I've found that very few people can manage this by themselves. People fair better with some form of external accountability. 

Why? Because we humans are social creatures, with a strong need to stay true to our word and deliver on our commitments (including the private ones).

Sharing your goals with others is both powerful and practical because, presuming it's a decent sized goal, it's extremely rare that it will be achieved by you alone. You'll likely need information, support, feedback, ideas, assistance, expertise, introductions, and much more - and you need other people for these things. 

So, it's clear: for setting Effective Goals you need to get others involved. In the FREE worksheet at the end of the series, I'll help you decide "who?" to involve and "how?", so make sure to sign up in the box on the right.

Want more? You can learn more about this by reading up on Cialdini's 6 Principles of Influence. Here's the one on Consistency and Commitment.