Why Buasiness Owners Should Drop Goals And Opt For 'Champagne Moments' Instead
Posted on September 04, 2020 by Nick Leighton, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
If you are a business owner that wants to inject passion, profit and happiness into your business it may be time to ditch goals, because goals suck.
For as long as goals have been around, successful entrepreneurs have been using them to achieve great things.
Ever since the SMART goal was introduced to the world by George T. Doran in the November 1981 issue of Management Review, it has been well-received. SMART was an acronym that originally stood for specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-related.
But SMART goals were originally introduced as an organizational driver and not an individual one. That’s why, today, people often substitute the “assignable” for “achievable.”
If you’re a business owner, goals can have their flaws. Here’s why.
1. Following a bad goal is often worse than not having one. Your goal only needs to be off by a little for you to end up in the wrong place. Imagine you are piloting a plane and you take off from New York and want to land in Los Angeles. You only need to be off by a few degrees in your heading to end up in San Francisco.
2. In entrepreneurship, speed is revered. Sometimes the process of setting goals is overlooked in the rush to have goals in place. Much of the power of goals is in their setup and discovery.
3. Goals are focused on the entrepreneurial vision. They have a direction that can keep us blinkered from desires our customers have or changes in society or our industry.
4. Goals create a fear of failure. This is negative energy that can adversely affect results or lead to other important business factors being ignored.
5. A dogged desire to reach a goal can lead to a lack of creativity.
6. The passion can get lost.
The question is, what should an entrepreneur opt for instead of goals?
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Goals have their place for many managers and team members. But we can add something that is more meaningful for an entrepreneur or business owner. It’s called a “champagne moment.”
As an entrepreneur or business owner, you have the capability to determine what you do at work, how much time you spend doing it, and with whom you do it. Custom-tailoring your own job description to focus primarily on activities for which you feel passion, have aptitude and know you can make a major, positive impact will help greatly in achieving your dreams.
Just as the Spice Girls asked, “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want.” This is a personal desire. If you had the time and resources to achieve what you have always wanted to personally achieve, what would it be? If you were going to achieve one thing in the next 12 to 36 months that would give you a sense of accomplishment and would be significant to you — so significant that you’re going to pop some champagne and we’re going to celebrate — what would that one thing be? That’s a champagne moment.
Examples include building a second home in the country where you were born, going to the Superbowl (or the Kentucky Derby, U.S. Open Final, etc.), taking a month off to live in your favorite European country, writing and publishing that book you’ve always talked about, and so on. Whatever your champagne moment is, it is personal and meaningful to you. That’s why you want it.
If you don’t immediately know what your champagne moment is, review your personal vision to provide guidance, look at your bucket list or just dream. But dream big.
Write down your champagne moment, pin it up and let it inspire you. If anyone asks you why you’re in business, this may be a suitable answer.
It’s going to take time and money to achieve your champagne moment, but the power of business will give you both. Use your current goals as stepping stones to your champagne moment. Then put in place a strategy to achieve your champagne moment through your own work as well as the work of the people in your business.
Go discover your champagne moment and achieve something truly amazing.
For business owners who want more passion, profit & happiness – contact Nick Leighton on nick@leightonlive.com. This article originally appeared on Forbes.com
