Are you great at goal setting? Do you regularly achieve your goals?

We are often told to create short term (which can be today or for this week), medium term (which can be for this month or this year), and long term goals (which can be this year or over the next 15 years).

Over the years I have regularly created lists of goals; put them away and then forgotten about them. Then, something will remind me and I will create some more. Down the track I might stumble upon those goals I have written down and contrary to all expectations we have been given which is, if you write your goals down they will happen. And yet, when I chance upon my writings and it could be years later, I review what I have written and, I have to say, nothing has changed. There are things on my lists that I still want to achieve or have.

So what am I doing wrong?

After much thought and investigation I discovered that writing down goals isn't really the answer for me. I've discovered that a goal is something I have identified that I want to achieve and it generally has an external focus or is an external thing. Which means that there is something external to me that I want. That could be something like more money, a promotion, a new car, a new house, a thriving business or anything else that I might identify.

So what's the answer? Well, I need to create outcomes, not goals.

When someone talks about an outcome they want to achieve, they have to determine what the neurological outcome is that they have to participate in to achieve it. It has to have an internal focus. Now that's a bit of a mouthful but simply means we have to be the person internally who can achieve that outcome.

For instance, someone may say that they want to be promoted. Being promoted is actually the goal – this has an external focus. Their outcome is to be promotable, someone who can be promoted. Which means that neurologically they have to be the type of person who is promotable therefore internally ready and prepared to step up to that next role.

Someone else might have a goal to own a Ferrari. However, until they are neurologically prepared internally to feel as if they are a Ferrari owner, they probably won't reach that outcome.

Working with people to reach outcomes means preparing them internally so they have a full body experience about what that outcome means to them and a full understanding of who they need to be to reach that outcome.

Outcomes can be used for small as well as large changes that someone wants to put in place and achieve.

A well formed outcome should be tangible and sensory specific and comprise the following:

1. What do they want to achieve, is it stated in the positive (what they do want, not what they don’t want)?

2. The outcome must be able to be self initiated and self maintained (i.e. are they reliant on other people to help them achieve this – if so they may need to change their outcome so they can rely on themselves and their own resources to achieve it)

3. Use sensory based language to describe experiencing achieving this goal. Get them to imagine that they have achieved their outcome:

• What do they see? Ask them to close their eyes and imagine that their outcome has been reached. What are they seeing around them, what are they doing, and what are other people doing?

• What can they hear, what are other people saying and what are they saying to themselves?

• What are they feeling?

• What can they taste or smell with this achievement?

4. How will they know that they’ve achieved this outcome, what evidence do they need to have to support the belief?

5. For what purpose do they want to achieve this outcome (ensure they answer with ‘so that…)? Keep repeating this question until they really reach the highest and best purpose for achieving this

6. What are the consequences of achieving this (e.g. will there be any issues with friends expectations and the way they were, compared to how they will be when they achieve it)

7. And is there a first step in achieving this? Is the first step achievable? Get them to identify the first thing they can do to move them in the right direction towards their outcome?

8. Is the outcome ecological? This means that it will do no harm if they achieve it to self, others or the environment.

Once these steps have been completed, finally ask them to step into the future and describe their experience as if they had achieved this and they’re talking to themselves now here in the present telling them all about what it’s been like since achieving this.

Outcome oriented conversations take a person’s thinking from the now (present) and into the future. Focussing someone on where they are now and where they want to be in the future is much more effective than focussing on past events or making a list of things that they want.

The whole purpose of for creating well formed outcomes is to move someone from where they are presently to where they want to be.

When I am working with someone and asking questions to create a well formed outcome I will watch and listen to ensure that they aren’t dwelling on the past and coming up with reasons why they can’t, or won’t, achieve or do something.

To make any change, you first have to be whatever that change is internally. To be a red Ferrari owner, you must first be a red Ferrari owner in your mind.

‘We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them’.

Albert Einstein

No more excuses!

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