NEW YEAR - NEW YOU
Happy New Year! The NASC Mentoring and Engagement Committee wishes each of you the best in 2019: in business, personal relationships, competitions, and personal growth! Goal #1 - I will read this entire blog post. Goal #2 - I will take the action at the end of the post. If you can reach these two goals you’ll begin the year with two ‘Wins!’

GOALS = SUCCESS

If you want to succeed you must set goals. Without goals we flounder, directionless. Goals provide a roadmap, waypoints, direction, and, ultimately, achievement. Your goals can be short-term or long-term; your goals can be personal and/or professional; your goals can be big dreamer and/or mundane. The point is that with our goals on paper they become real and attainable. Take a few moments to review how to create, measure, and realize your goals!

GET MOTIVATED

Get excited about what you want to achieve this year. It’s a new year and we are all recharging for the upcoming challenges, opportunities, and the unexpected 2019 is going to provide us. Whether your goals are large or small the first step in setting them is to get excited at what the desired outcome is going to be. 

• “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” - Andrew Carnegie
• “The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run. It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact… those people have goals.” —Seth Godin
• “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” - Tony Robbins 
• “What keeps me going is goals.” - Muhammad Ali

Great Quotes...Now what: Goal setting can be a little intimidating. We’re all trying to grow and strive. Identifying what you want to achieve and not what other people want you to achieve is the first step to determining what will motivate you. We all need that unseen energy behind the goal so that we can move toward success. If you struggle, like I do, with creating personally meaningful goals, professionals suggest writing a personal mission statement.  

SMART….OR NOT

S.M.A.R.T: Widely used and well-established tool for goal setting. SMART goals provide a structure by which we can organize and manage our goals. While researching for this post, most of the articles I came across promoted the use of the SMART goal setting method as part (or the whole) of the most effective methods to set and achieve our goals. 

• Specific - Be clear and specific in your goal setting
• Measurable - Make your goal something that delivers a measurable outcome
• Achievable - Realistic and attainable
• Relevant - Make your goals matter to you
• Time-bound - set a target date and/or deadline

UGH….ANOTHER PROCESS: My day is nearly completely filled with process. CRM work, proposal creation, permitting processes, updating bids, reviewing contracts, sitting in meetings...I don’t really want another process. Not everyone has to have the SMART structure to set successful goals. We can all create meaningful, motivating goals with or without the process. If you’re like me, goals come to me at all hours of the day and throughout the year. I have to sort through the thoughts and determine which goals are meaningful to me. Many of the goals that come to me are really just goals that, when achieved, benefit other people. Or, the goals that come to me are just short term ‘to-do-list’ items that aren’t really goals at all. 

WHAT NEXT

Awesome blog but... You probably know all of this. You may be saying, "yes - I have to be motivated. Yes - I understand SMART goals. Yes - I understand the importance of goal setting."

But will you:

• Put your goals in writing! They don’t exist unless you take them out of your brain and onto paper!!!
• Give yourself permission not to achieve your goal? 
• Create goals that stretch your current abilities?
• Get uncomfortable?
• Ask for help?
• Commit to the work?
• Learn from failure?

Did you achieve Goal #1: Thanks for reading! Congratulations on starting the year with a goal already in the bag (it can really be that easy!). For Goal #2 - please leave one goal you hope to achieve this year in the comment section. That goal can be anything - easy, short-term, stretch, whatever. Begin your year by achieving two goals and gain some confidence. You can achieve anything, you can learn everyday from your successes and failures, you can be the person and professional you want to be….all you have to do is put your goals on paper, follow the plan you create to achieve the goals, learn from failing, and….most importantly, care for yourself and others!

Matthew Robinette, CSEE, CMP
Director of Convention & Sports Services
Richmond Region Tourism
mrobinette@visitrichmondva.com