How to Help Someone Reach a Goal Imagine you had a group of friends that were only your friends

for the purpose of holding you accountable for achieve a goal YOU set for yourself. You would be recruited to join the group based on the persons belief that you would benefit from associating with like-minded people for a short period of time for the purpose of mentoring and accountability. Once you attain your goal, you would then prepare to leave the group by locating a person to take your place. You would not contact them (or the group) again. As a part of your recruits "pay it forward" final step, they would contact you to share their success or failure. This person would be a member of your tree. Once your tree grew to a given size, your tree would collectively set a goal and work toward it and the programs rules would again apply. 1Set a goal. 2Assign a deadline for completion of said goal. 3Locate a "tree" of like minded people with the same goal. 4Set up a schedule to check in on steps toward completion. During this process, there must be a series of contacts solely for the purpose of accountability. Members of your tree should not be current friends or family as they tend to be less likely to be neutral and accept/offer excuses for failure. Strangers have no reason to accept excuses... 5As you approach the final 10% of remaining time for your goal, seek to find someone interested in attaining the goal you have just achieved. 6Determine if they would benefit from becoming a member of a group that would support them while holding them accountable for their success or failure. If that is the case, mentor them on the steps you took to achieve your goal. 7Introduce them to your group and prepare to exit the group. 8Set another goal and repeat the above steps. Tips Start a group for any goal. It can be for the purpose of losing weight, achieving a degree, starting a business, etc. Remember that if you are the originator of a group, there will be no one to share to mentor you. This means you will need to have a level of independence and the desire to stick to your plan. Be open to the person you mentor and the tree that develops. Do not interact with your group for any reason other than for the purpose of discussing your goal. Befriending your group in any other fashion may seriously compromise their ability to remain neutral. Seek members via social media groups, Craigslist or chat rooms. Be aware of the basic rules of safety. Do not give out your name, address or other personal information. If you plan to meet in person, hold meetings in public places. While your intentions may be sincere; not everyone has the same mind frame. Some will seek to join a group for illicit purposes.

Why people fail to achieve their goals

Most people claim to understand the importance of goal setting in order to attain a better life, but in fact, approximately 80 percent of people never set goals for themselves. This is especially prevalent among people who are not involved in some sort of business or entrepreneurial endeavor that promotes goal setting. Even more surprising, of the 20 percent of the population that does set goals, roughly 70 percent fail to achieve the goals they have set for themselves. And when you take into consideration the fact that many of these goal-setting people strive for easily attainable, small goals, its a wonder that anyone accomplishes anything remarkable at all in business and in life. When it comes to goals, there are two categories: be goals and do goals. In other words, who do you want to be or what do you want to achieve? Within each category, there are four areas of goals: wealth, health, relationships and self-fulfillment. So any goal you set for yourself will fall into one of these areas. When a business professional sets a goal, it tends to be either a wealth goal or a relationship goal. However, achievement involves all four areas, and success means finding balance in the four areas. In order to live a successful life, you need both being and doing goals in each of the four areas. But before you rush out and set goals at random, you need to know what traps to avoid. What follows are the top 10 reasons why people fail at achieving their goals. Avoid these roadblocks and goal attainment will be yours. 1) Fear of success and/or failure. Some people are afraid they will fail or, even worse, that they may actually succeed. As such, they dont even bother trying to attain a goal. Such people lack belief in themselves and in their potential. In their mind, if they fail, everyone will think negatively of them. And if they succeed, people will be envious and think negatively of them. So it becomes a lose-lose situation no matter how they look at it. But realize that you can achieve anything you set your mind to. Believe in yourself and your abilities and others will, too. 2) Lack of understanding about the goal-setting process. Many people mistakenly believe that goal setting simply means putting a goal on paper, setting a date for completion, marking off checkpoints as they occur and then starting all over again. Such a mentality hinders people from success, because a goal isnt a one time thing that you eventually scratch off a list. Setting a goal is really about changing yourself for the long-term. Goals arent short-term, quick-fix things; they are fixed and immovable destinations that show the world who you want to become or what you want to achieve. 3) Lack of commitment to the goal.

Even though people state they want to achieve a certain goal, in truth, theyre really not committed to it. Because of this lack of commitment, they dont give the act of goal attainment their full effort. And as with anything in life, if you dont give it your all, you receive mediocre results. Commitment is crucial for attaining any goal. 4) Inactivity. After setting a goal, writing down dates and setting checkpoints, some people stop. They never actually take that first step needed to progress toward their goal. But realize if you dont get started, you cant go anywhere. Without action, nothing happens. So if youv e created a goal list and now wonder why none of your goals are transpiring, ask yourself what action steps youve taken to achieve your goals. If you havent taken any action, now is the time to start. 5) Analysis paralysis. Many people let questions and doubts paralyze them. They believe they cant start on a goal until they have all the answers to every what if scenario. However, no matter how long and hard you prepare, you will never have all the answers to the questions you ask. Additionally, most people make their decisions and/or answer their questions based on where they are right now, rather than on where they want to go or who they want to become. Always base your decisions and answer your questions with a view to the future, not a view to current situations. Your situation will change because of the decisions you make today and will dictate the success of your journey. So, move forward toward your goal knowing that youll never have all the answers. 6) Lack of a real destination. People often begin setting goals without a solid destination of who they want to become or what they ultimately want to achieve. But if you dont have a destination in mind, then youll never know which road to take to get where you want to go. Your destination needs to be clear something you can visualize and describe to others. Without such a clear view of what you want in life, youll be forever changing course and falling short of your potential. 7.) Failing to plan. While many people understand the formula of goal setting, they dont have a plan for goal attainment thats personalized to them and their experiences. In other words, they neglect the gifts they possess which can help them attain the goal, as well as the people they know who may be able to help them. We each bring so many unique talents and attributes to the table, and we know a multitude of people who can help us in some way. Be mindful of these advantages during your planning process and use the resources you have available to you. 8) Having too many goals. Some people have too many goals and not enough focus. Its like theyre standing in front of a dart board with three targets in mind. Hitting just one target is difficult

enough; hitting three targets simultaneously with one dart is impossible. Therefore, determine the one goal you are focused on and move forward with that one goal only. Eliminate other goals that are secondary. This is not to say that you should never have more than one goal. Rather, you need to realize that you have only so much time and energy. Therefore, choose the goal that will give you the highest ROE (return on effort) and focus on that one goal first. Once complete, you can then focus on other goals in sequence. 9) Feeling unworthy of the end result. Some people really dont believe theyre worthy of attaining the goal. As such, they selfsabotage themselves. Perhaps they suddenly walk away from the key contact who will help them with their goal, or they neglect to do a critical activity that will enable them to achieve their goal. People who feel unworthy usually lack self-confidence, and confidence is the keystone to goal attainment. 10) Lack of motivation to change. Finally, many people are simply satisfied with what they have and where they are in life. As such, they dont explore what else is available or what greater things they could achieve. Research tells us that there are only two motivating factors that cause people to change: pain and pleasure. And even if someone is feeling pain in a situation, that pain may not be great enough, or he or she is simultaneously receiving ample pleasure, so the person doesnt strive for more. Change and goal attainment only happen when youre ready to break the status quo and truly want something better in life. Conclusion Goal achievement doesnt have to be an elusive target. You really can be whom you want and do what you want. By balancing your goals into the four categories mentioned and avoiding the mistakes that hinder peoples results, you can achieve any goal you set for yourself and reach new levels of personal and professional success.

A RESOLUTION YOU WON'T FAIL AT: HELPING SOMEONE ELSE ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS
DO SOMETHING WITH MORE LASTING IMPACT THIS YEAR THAN LOSING THOSE SAME 10 POUNDS (AGAIN).

BY: CRAIG CHAPPELOW

In early January, many people resolve to do things differently in their lives. By mid-January, most people have already given up on those resolutions and gone

back to watching too much TV, eating hot dogs wrapped in pretzel crust from Auntie Annies, and using their treadmill as a place to hang clothes.
But what if your responsibilities include helping other people reach their goals? Is there something you can do to get them through January and--gasp--beyond? Whether you are a manager, parent, or friend, research on goal-setting shows there is plenty you can do to help someone out. New Years resolutions are all about change: eat less, exercise more, spend time with friends, get less stressed out. And lets face it, change is hard. Here are four things you can do to help the people you care about: 1. Call B.S. If I have learned one thing from coaching executives and tracking their progress toward business and personal goals, it is this: Unless an individual is committed to reaching their goal (and I mean really committed--not just that they think it is the right thing to do, or their boss or spouse thinks they should do it, or all of their friends seem to be so much happier because they are doing it), it wont get done. The drive has to be there, and it has to be genuine. I have an activity that I use called the B.S. detector. It challenges executives to describe to me why they are motivated to achieve a goal. The activity involves, among other things, listing what they have to give up to reach their goal, and compares it to what they have to gain. If, during this exercise, I get the feeling that they are not committed, we drop it and go on to something else. Otherwise, we are wasting each others time, and I resolved to stop wasting time in 2013. 2. Shove We all know the old saw of using SMART goals. As it turns out, the SMART approach is pretty, well, smart. The one trouble involves the A, which stands for attainable. Turns out that people work harder and perform better when the goals are moderately difficult. One of the classic studies on goal-setting was done 10 years ago by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, who summarized 35 years of goal research in an article that appeared in the journal American Psychologist. Their work showed that people made the greatest effort toward achieving goals that were a challenge, and made the least effort when the goal was easy or extremely hard. Keep that in mind the next time you sit down with someone and review the goals they have set.

3. Use Tough Love Remember when you were a kid, and a teacher, or maybe one of your parents smiled at you and said, Just do your best.? They werent helping you much. The S in the smart goal model stands for specific, and Locke and Latham found that moderately difficult, specific goals led to substantially better performance than instructions to just do ones best. They suggest that instructions to do the best you can provide no external referent, and people define their own acceptable performance level. If you are a parent, can you remember times when you instructed your kids to Do the best you can? Did it work? 4. More Love Locke and Lathams research supports my anecdotal observation on commitment. They describe a second factor that is also critical to goal achievement--self-efficacy (the belief that we can actually achieve the goal). They suggest that there are three ways leaders can raise the self-efficacy of their subordinates: by providing adequate training opportunities for the individual to be confident, by exposing the person to successful role models, and by expressing confidence in the individuals abilities. So resolve that 2013 is the year you will release your inner Bela Karolyi and use more You can do it! feedback with your subordinates. It might at least get them through February. And if youre really lucky, maybe someone will commit to following through on these four tips for you as well. --Craig Chappelow, who specializes in 360-degree feedback and the development of effective senior executive teams, is a portfolio manager at the Center for Creative Leadership (ccl.org), a top-ranked, global provider of leadership education and research.