By Andrew Oldham
For any business, Goals & Priority setting is one of the most important activities you should be doing as a leader in business and in life! Whether it is for the business, your own personal goals or creating the discipline for your key team members, this should be a part of your weekly, monthly, quarterly and annual activities.

Unfortunately the areas people tend to fall down in when setting goals are:
1. They are too general.
2. Not measured regularly. For example: They get reviewed a year later when your on holidays and feeling good about life.
3. They don’t get shared with people who can potential help you achieve what you want out of life and business.
Here’s a very simple formula you can take the business and your team members through when first setting out your goals:
Start with setting S.M.A.R.T Goals
Specific - Make it Specific. Is it a dollar figure in mind, a specific make, model, colour of a car, a holiday in a certain destination and date, new business division up and running? Be very clear in your own mind what it is.
Measurable – Precisely, how will you know when you’ve reached your goal? What’s at the finish line? What will it look and feel like?

Achievable - Have you run a reality check? Are you prepared to make the commitment to achieve your goal? Have you identified the barriers and how to over come these?
Reviewable - How often will you keep yourself accountable to your goals? Will you review where you are on a monthly basis? We suggest you find someone to share your goals and help keep you accountable.
Time frame - What’s a reasonable date for achieving your goal? Strike a balance between being so ambitious you never expect to succeed and aiming so low you lack incentive to try. You can tweak the date as you make progress.
BIG Rocks
We talk with our firms regularly about their ‘Big Rocks’. In both our business and personal lives, we have big rocks, gravel, sand and water. The natural tendency seems to favor the latter three, leaving little space for the big rocks. In an effort to respond to putting out fires, the importance is sometimes set aside. What are the 'big rocks' in your life? A large project? Spending time with your family? Your health? Your finances? Your faith? Your personal development? Your dreams? Make a list of your big rocks. Then make a plan to ensure that your big rocks are put first.
Tip’s to getting your goals right:
1. Find some quiet space, preferably away from your desk, phone and emails.
2. Use a template to document what your goals are and make it visible. Using a whiteboard can really help keeping them in your face.
3. Highlight what your BIG Rocks are for the YEAR at the top.
4. Start working backwards and set your 90 day (quarterly), 30 day (monthly) goals and then your next 7 days priorities. These should all be aligned with your Big Rocks for the year.
5. Share your goals with your team, partner, wife/husband, mentor etc.
6. Review your goals on a monthly basis and measure where you are and what needs to change.
7. Find some accountability. Even the great business and sports people of our time have someone keeping them accountable to what they want to achieve