How Setting Goals for Business Changed My Life: How to Set SMART Goals

By Scotti Ian Ogden
Owner of Ogden Contracting LTD

Start Running Your Company like a Multimillion-dollar Business & See What Happens

I initially decided to start goal setting for my company because I wanted to create a legacy out of my business. I have a few of my younger brothers working for me, and I wanted to leave them something successful when I choose to retire. Before this point I ran a decent company with high standards but lacked organization and systematization. I needed a plan to make my business run smoother and more automatically.

Setting Personal Goals

I set my first goals in 2021 when I joined Breakthrough Academy. They had me write out BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goals), this term humored me. I showed my daughter Sofia my list of goals. Her response was, “Dad, all those goals are about your company, what about personal and self growth goals?” I never thought the opinion of a 21-year-old would have such an impact on my life; she was absolutely right.

Hire a Visionary Coach

I decided to hire Lois Weinblatt of True North Visionaries to assist me in creating a vision for my future. Lois helped me look deeply into myself and analyze my desires and my past. She taught me the five major components of life, personal, professional, financial, spiritual and relational. We looked at the milestones, accomplishments, obstacles, influencers and energy of each of those areas to create a general understanding of where I came from, what served me and what worked against me, my empowering beliefs and my limiting beliefs.

Create Your Own Set of Values

During my eight-week course with Lois I was challenged to strip away everything I believed to be true and to create my own set of values that truly mattered to me. All to answer this one question, why am I here on this earth? This was a great exercise, it created a baseline for everything I do in life, a foundation of beliefs that drive my actions. Answering this question allowed me to write my personal mission statement for my existence and gave me a clear vision of what really mattered to me.

Be the Person You Want to be 5 Years From Now

One of the last exercises I practiced with my visionary coach was to write my vision for my future five years later. Along with that vision, I created a clear roadmap and directions. Lois taught me that I have to be living as that person ninety five percent of the time up until then. Lois and I still meet on a weekly basis, she has become a close friend and mentor to me.

Starting Small & Making Habits Atomic

Setting goals is not always easy, you’re often pushed outside of your comfort zone. I’ve always liked the quote by Denzel Washington, “if you want something you’ve never had, you need to do something you’ve never done”, this is true. I wanted to become smarter in business, so I started reading business books every morning before work for forty five minutes. I wanted healthier relationships so I started seeing a therapist. I needed stronger systems so I hired somebody to write and implement them. I wanted to be a better speaker so I joined Toastmasters. Start small with automatic habits and your BHAG goals become less intimidating.

3 Steps for Setting High Quality Goals

1. The “WHY” is Most Important

Spend quality time reflecting on why you want to make changes in your life. Dive deep on this.

2. Create SMART Goals

S – Specific: Your goals should be clear and specific. Instead of stating that you want to grow your business, say you want to grow your business 15% in the next year.

M – Measurable: Are you able to determine when you have achieved your goal? For example, like the one above you will be able to see that your company has grown in revenue by 15% if the numbers the following year are 15% more than the previous year.

A – Attainable: Your goals should be realistic and attainable. They should challenge you, but you also don’t want to set yourself up for failure. Setting a goal to double your business in a year may be a recipe for failure.

R – Relevant: The goal should be relevant to your overall vision. If your goal is to grow your business then employing more staff or moving into a bigger office might be relevant goals to have.

T – Time-Bound: Every goal should have an expected time associated with it or you will feel like you’re moving nowhere. This will also create an urgency to complete your goals. Such as in the goal above, you stated that you want to grow 15% in the next year, now you have a deadline to meet.

3. Review Your Goals Regularly

Review your goals on a regular basis and adjust accordingly to ensure you’re on track. Life is not always predictable, things change such as Market trends, your physical or mental health, and to be honest, life is different after you start making changes. You may become overwhelmed with your original goals, or perhaps you realize you’re not dreaming big enough.

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