Published 15 October 2014. Updated 17 December 2025.
In both business and professional life, a lot can be said and written about the best ways to set goals and plan in order to succeed. There are also many different ways to do this, from more traditional methods to scrapbooking and imaging and mapping your goals. As an experienced business coach, I admit I tend to lean towards something which is clear, defined and yes, written down. To help you, I have listed a few tips to set goals and plan for better success in your life, career and business.
Planning for Success
Target for Better!
Target for something which is a little difficult – but always, never impossible. Goals should never be out of reach, otherwise, many of us tend to give up, as it just seems too hard. Likewise, if you aim for the easy, well what is the point? You’re going to achieve it, but what are you actually achieving? If it’s easy, then it’s probably not much of a reach, or much of an achievement. For some, being easy can even create a lack of motivation. We’ve all heard of SMART goals; those which are specific, measurable, achievable, reportable and time-driven. So, when you create a goal, be specific etc. “I want to be rich”, which is absolutely nothing. I want to increase my bottom line profit in 3 months by 7% is far more likely to be achieved. Will it make you rich? Well, keep at it and possibly it will, although what does ‘rich’ mean to you? I can ask 100 people to put a dollar value on the word ‘rich’ (and that’s assuming we’re talking dollars and not say rich in love, or happiness or something else) and I would likely get 100 different answers. It’s not specific; therefore you can’t track it, you can’t measure how you’re going and it becomes a goal hard to attain. However, before you even target to improve, you need to know where you are now. That becomes your starting point.
Plan with Purpose
Sometimes in business coaching or planning sessions, I might talk to a client about a specific goal. I can tell by their lack of enthusiasm, passion and interest that this goal means little to them. If I’m able to help the client realise the importance of the goal, then we may choose together to select that goal. However, if the client lacks passion for that goal, then often it’s just not worth even writing down. Goals need to be SMART, but they also need to have passion around them; if the client doesn’t care about that goal, why would they put in the time and effort to achieve it? The client needs to align with your values, passions, objectives – in essence, what is important to you. Not important, it’s probably not going to happen.
Plan Holistically
When you’re setting goals and planning, be reasonable about this. You might plan to implement some mighty big goals, but also consider the ‘costs’ around those goals. I’m not talking here (at this point) about money, but about the time it will take to action the plan, the effort and the energy. If family time, or ‘me time’, is important to you and you want to also focus on good health, work-life balance and other personal aspects, then be realistic about your goals in your business or career. We are all human; we need rest, recreation, sleep and people time (family, friends, interests) so be holistic when you plan, set goals and set timelines.
Plan All Your Resources
Above, I talked about the resource of time; having time to fulfil your goals and dreams, but along with this comes also having the money (or team or skills) to complete your goal. You might want to spend lots of dollars on marketing and advertising to grow your lead opportunities, but if you don’t have the money, then don’t set goals where your cash flow will let you down. When you are setting goals and deciding the steps that you will have to take to achieve such goals, allocate suitable time and money for each activity. For this reason, when I’m being a business coach, I say to clients ‘work on your business, not just in it’. Resources are more than money or time; it’s also passion and energy. You need to ensure you allocate the right amount of resources to your goal development activities.
Plan the Path to Take
To me, as important as the goal (and perhaps even more important) is the path you will take. Too often, someone sets a goal, but they are really not sure how to achieve that goal. Where do they begin? What is the best path to follow to achieve that goal? Who can help them, or what skills do they need to attain in order to complete those action steps for that goal?
Putting in each of the action steps is very important. It keeps you focussed on the day-to-day steps you need to take, helps you plan time, money and energy and allows you to often allocate staff or team members to assist you. This is often where business coaching is helpful, because not only will the expert coach have the experience to know the journey best taken, but they will also be able to help you get started.
At times, when I’m helping clients, it’s not only about guiding them as to the path to take, but giving them guidance and support on the individual steps. It might be introducing them to someone who specifically can help them, or perhaps it’s about keeping them to task and doing the action steps required in order to achieve the goals; in other words, ‘accountability’.
Keep Reminding Yourself
If you’re working with a coach, they will keep reminding you of your goals and checking in to see how the action steps are progressing. I know when I check in with clients, I find out where they are and determine if they are getting stuck. If they are getting ‘stuck’, I find out why. It might be something practical and concrete, or it might be a mindset, or lack of motivation or even a fear they are experiencing. Some people fear success as much as they fear failure; I get down to the crux of these fears and then help the client to work through them in order to keep going.
If you’re not working with a coach, then be sure to repeatedly remind yourself about your goals. You may do it by sticking reminders on your desktop, on the wall, in your wallet, in your daily diary, in the format of repeated reminder tasks. Goals are only achieved through constant and consistent action; they usually don’t happen overnight or because you did one single thing, once, and suddenly a big goal is achieved. Often, in fact, it’s a hundred little things that make the difference, what I frequently call ‘the one percenters’.
Monitor and Correct
Regularly assess the progress you are making, and if you see that you’re not progressing, hitting a snag, or something around you has changed (often out of your control), then take corrective action as required. Your goal may need to be amended, or more likely, your plan of attack will need a tweak or changes.
If you’re interested in learning more about my strategic goal planning and setting sessions, simply just ask via my Contact Page. These can be done in person (locally) or via Zoom. I have found that Zoom sessions work really well; only difference, you can’t give me a hug at the end to say how excited you are about the plans for your future. Because I’ve been doing this for a long time, I know the questions to ask and I also know that people’s goals need to be theirs. If you’re stuck on ideas for goals, I can absolutely help you with ideas; however, it’s not up to me to say you should aim for this or that, but rather to see what you want.
My passion is your potential!
