I have written about goals and I have written about using both positive and negative leverage to help you stay focused on and committed to the pursuit of your goals but I am quite often asked what do you do if you are not even sure what your goals should be in the first place. I will outline a process that my colleagues in MaST Ireland introduced to me that has worked very well for me personally and has proven very effective to many of MaST Ireland’s clients. This process is particularly applicable to work related goals but can in fact be applied to any major area of your life.

This process involves 4 steps, the first of which is to do define the purpose of your role at work in less than 20 words, that is what is it you do that justifies your salary every month? There is a very good reason for keeping your answer to less than 20 words and that is to encourage you to get very focused and specific. Even the most diverse roles can be described in this way so get cracking. For example, if you are a Sales Manager the purpose of your role might be: -To Manage sales-staff effectively, exceed monthly targets, communicate sales activities to Management and identify new markets for our products.

Once you have defined the purpose of your role, step 2 involves defining the “key result areas” of your role. “Key result areas” or KRAs are what you need to focus your time, energy and commitment on in order that the purpose of your role is fulfilled to the maximum of your potential. I have spoken many times in the past about the importance of balance so I would encourage you, when doing this exercise to ensure that at least one of your KRAs relate to your personal life. After all, if you focus all your attention on work all the time, you will one day wake up and wonder what you doing it all for. Also, by including a personal KRA in your plans, you are automatically focusing on it and you will therefore have a better chance of giving it the attention it deserves. When creating your list of KRAs keep the list to a manageable level with not more than 8 in total being recommended. Going back to the Sales Manager example, his or her KRAs may be something like 1. Monthly Sales Targets, 2. Communication with Sales Team, 3. New Business development, 4. Reporting, 5. Managing the Sales Budget, 6. Sales team training, 7. Sales team incentives / motivation, 8. Run a marathon.

Your list of KRAs should represent the most important aspects of your role. By focusing the majority (min 80%) of your time in these areas will allow you to maximise your potential and your contribution to your organisation. If you are presented with a task that does not fit into any of the KRAs listed above you would be wise to explore if there is any real merit in taking on the task or perhaps you need to amend your KRAs to reflect this new task.

Step 3: Now that you know what you need to focus on you can now establish specific short term, medium term and long term goals for each of your KRAs using the tried and tested SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time Based) process which I have written about at length in previous articles. If you are interested in learning more about goal setting, please feel free to check out the Article archive section of our website.

Step 4 and the final step is to identify the first thing that you need to do immediately to start moving towards each of your goals. Every step of this process needs to be documented so that you hold yourself accountable and have a way to quickly check if you are staying on track or drifting off into areas that may be nice to be doing but in reality contribute little to nothing to your overall effectiveness in your role. Keep these “nice” activities for rewards and when you are at your lowest energy levels.

Fergal O’Connor is a Business and Personal Life Coach working in partnership with his Business and Private clients providing a supportive, confidential, challenging and non-judgemental environment to make their ambitions and dreams a reality. Fergal also facilitates a range of Management training programs and is available for public speaking engagements. Fergal can be contacted at Synergy Coaching Services, Tel: (061) 467287, email info@synergycoachingservices.net