Goal Setting Strategies
And Tips From The Experts

The top goal setting strategies that I've used all have some common threads and thoughts behind them. Here is my take on eight top tips from four experts.

The four experts I'm referencing below are Traci Brown, Anthony Robbins, Henriette Anne Klauser, and Robert K. Cooper.

Eight goal setting strategies and tips from four experts

1. Dream big or go home

One of the recommended goal setting strategies that comes up repeatedly is to create big, overarching goals. I call this way of looking at goals "dreamstorming" but no matter what you call it, big goals are good.

Marianne Williamson wrote "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." She goes on to say "There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you."

According to Wikiquote, that quote is often misattributed to Nelson Mandela and his inauguration speech, but the message is, and Mandela's life certainly exemplifies this... dream big and do big things.

Sometimes the fear we feel when attempting new things is not fear of potential loss or risk, but fear of success, or rather the responsibility that comes with success.

If you don't like success, consider the alternative!

Failure to dream big is a slow road to nowhere. Tony Robbins says that most people have goals that don't inspire them. Either find a bigger goal, or get a better and more compelling reason why the goal you've chosen is a must-do for you.

In his book Get Out of Your Own Way, Robert K. Cooper talks about what he calls, open-space goals. He wrote:

"There's a part of you, deep inside your brain and spirit, that's a bit like a heat-seeking missile, searching by instinct and feel for something of true significance, craving big goals."

2. Find a cause bigger than yourself

Experts tell us that it's not necessarily what you want that counts, it's what you'll become by striving to achieve it. When Tony Robbins recounts his big goal setting session that was, you could say, a turning point in his life, he says that he didn't achieve everything on his list, but that didn't matter. What mattered was the transformation that took place.

In order to keep you on target, choosing a cause bigger than yourself is an important driver. For me, somewhere along the way, as a young child, I fell in love with learning new things, of seeing the world in new ways, and sharing those thoughts with others. That became a cause greater than myself and pushed me to do things I never would have done otherwise.

Robert K. Cooper says that as you experience new thinking and approach a long term overarching goal, your brain rewires itself. He says:

"It's not castles-in-the-air wishful thinking, you're growing your way toward this compelling possibility--alert to the next opportunities, adapting and expanding your aims and actions as you go."

He goes on to say that as you think about your goals one year or five years from now and beyond, they should stretch you and feel uncomfortable. If they don't, they're likely not compelling enough.

3. Get clear

Sometimes, we have a tendency to think that we know what we want, but do you? It's hard to get excited by a vague notion of a an uncertain future that may or not happen. If you're not clear on what you want, how can your brain know what to do to get it for you?

Robert K. cooper says that "star performers start with a well-defined and concrete" goal.

4. Write it down, make it happen

"The most successful people in the world write down their goals."
-Traci Brown How to Make Money, Have Fun and Love What You Do

Traci Brown's ebook contains a number of goal setting strategies and worksheets that get you to think far beyond what Robert Cooper calls closed-space--those things right in front of view--and out into open space.

Those worksheets allow you to write it all down. This is a key element in goal setting strategies, including those employed by Gary Ryan Blair, Tony Robbins, and many many more.

What if you don't know what to write?

"If you don't know what you want, start writing. Writing makes its own meaning."
-Henriette Anne Klauser Write It Down, Make It Happen

5. Internalize it

Traci Brown tells us that if you want to achieve your goals, then you need to have alignment of what you want consciously with what your unconscious wants. Robert Cooper says a similar thing but from a physiological point of view. He says that what you want and what your brain wants are at odds.

Tony Robbins says that you need to learn to run your brain and "live with passion" which engages the heart and brain.

"To an amazing degree that we are just beginning to understand, we genuinely think with our hearts."
-Robert K. Cooper

If you're currently working as a store clerk, and your big dream goal is to run the company, but you don't believe that you deserve that position in life, it's going to be hard to convince your brain to do what it takes to make it. If your goal doesn't align with your values and beliefs, you'll be much less likely to achieve it. If you do manage to get the outcome you want, you won't be fulfilled.

You either have to change your goal to align, or change your values and beliefs!

6. Compete against yourself, not others

Despite what you may have heard, competition is not good. Robert K. Cooper reports that competition inhibits learning and creativity. Instead, "star-performing individuals and teams replace the goal of getting across the finish line ahead of the other person with the aim of going beyond the best they have ever given because doing so matters to them personally, for its own sake."

7. Timeline it and work backwards

Take the long view. Envision your ideal future and set your goals based on that. Then work backwards.

Tony Robbins has the "rocking chair" technique and Traci Brown recommends doing an exercise where you pretend you're old, and then work backwards. What do you want your life to be like at 95 years old (or if you're already that old, how about 105?) and then envision what has to happen to get you there, working backwards to the present moment.

Have you ever heard of Panasonic? Robert Cooper says that the founder, Konosuke Matsushita, kept a one hundred to two hundred year time horizon in his sights, and did amazing things with his life, including founding a company that dwarfed many.

Cooper recommends looking ahead five years or more and defining what you want. Then, compress the time line.

8. Make a commitment

"There's always a way, if you're committed."
-Tony Robbins

Henriette Anne Klauser says "it is up to you to trust the possibility enough to be willing to put your dream in writing, and to take the first step, even with no evidence that it will actually happen."

I've learned a lot from the goal setting strategies of the four experts I've listed here, and I'm always looking for new insights I can glean and of course, share.

Photo credit: Goal post / CC 2.0

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