Achieve Your Goals

Episode #103: I am sharing what it means to set a plan and then to stay organized and focused so you can go achieve it. You must be persistent, and never quit. You can assess and reorganize, but never quit. What will you do when an obstacle gets in your way?  What will you do when you have distractions? How will you ensure you have the right people around you so they support you? There are so many considerations after put your goals on the page.

Episode outline:

1. Achievement begins with our mindset,
2. Setting great habits and a daily routine are key,
3. Stay organized,
4. Be persistent,
5. Ensure you surround yourself with supportive people, and
6. Develop a plan so you stay focused.

Please connect with me on:

1. Instagram: stephen.mclain
2. Twitter: smclainiii
3. Facebook: stephenmclainconsultant
4. LinkedIn: stephenjmclainiii

For more resources, please visit Finance Leader Academy:  financeleaderacademy.com.

Transcript

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Stephen McLain: 0:04

My first two episodes of 2023. We're focused on goal planning and goal setting. This episode I am sharing what it means to set a plan, and then to stay organized and focused so you can go achieve it. You must be persistent and never quit. You can assess and reorganize but never quit. What will you do when an obstacle gets in your way? What will you do when you have distractions? How will you ensure you have the right people around you so they support you? There are so many considerations after you put your goals on the page. And let's be ready to achieve in 2023. Please enjoy the episode. Welcome to the finance leader podcast where leadership is bigger than the numbers. I am your host, Stephen McLean. This is the podcast for developing leaders in finance and accounting. Please consider following me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. My usernames and the links are in this episode's show notes. This is episode number 103. And I'll be talking about how to prepare yourself for achieving your goals. And I will highlight the following topics. Number one, achievement begins with our mindset. Number two, setting great habits and a daily routine are key. Number three, stay organized. Number four, be persistent. Number five and share you surround yourself with supportive people. And six develop a plan. So you stay focused, Michael Jordan said I can accept failure, everyone fails at something, but I can accept not trying. And my last two episodes, I focused on goal setting for 2023. And I encourage you to use the smart goal setting method to plan your goals. Goal setting is very personal to me. And it should be to you too. It's how we set in motion our dreams and what we want to become and who we want to be. For most of us goals are what drive us, we see the words on the page on what we want to accomplish. And it gives us the motivation to do more and to go the extra mile to achieve that dream. I know you feel this way too. The focus of this episode is the transition from planning our goals to accomplishing our goals. We need to ready ourselves to accomplish our goals. We are already more than one month into the new year. We need to be ready for obstacles and distractions to get on our way because they always do we need to be ready. What are you going to do when life gets in the way? Our mindset is the bridge between the impossible and what we actually get done while maneuvering through obstacles, distractions and challenges that will take your time and suck away your energy and focus. A growth mindset is characterized by the belief that one's abilities and intelligence can be developed through hard work, dedication and learning. You must prioritize your effort and prioritize your day every day. What will you work on? What's most important and most urgent? How is what you are doing today and tomorrow supporting your goals, your growth and your advancement to CFO and even CEO? are you achieving your organizational goals? And more importantly, are you helping others to achieve their goals? This depends on if and how we prioritize. Let's complete the most urgent and most important tasks first, like in the Eisenhower method of prioritizing. And sure you place these on your calendar. When it comes to your goals. You must prioritize those also along with your work requirements in your personal life requirements. Prioritize so you have no regret in the choices you make no regret. communicate those decisions to all stakeholders and start to line up expectations with those decisions. The persistent person wins in the end even if they were slow about their work and effort. Persistence through distractions and setbacks is the everyday fight to stay focused. How can you do it when you're facing two choices, the choice to put the work in or the choice to be distracted by life. It involves staying focused, determined and maintaining effort over time to achieve a desired outcome. Persistence is seen as an important characteristic for success in various areas of life, including personal development, education, and your career. And sure you're also developing your soft skills every day, we need to get a little better with our soft skills, like time management, communication, emotional intelligence, and many others. Now leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution are crucial to help individuals inspire and motivate others. Overall, soft skills are just as important as technical skills and can greatly impact an individual's personal and professional All success. Becoming a finance leader is what I want you to do. A finance leader goes beyond the data goes beyond the daily tasks and begins to add more value to the data they are analyzing, and reporting on. Becoming a true finance leader is what will separate you from the others, you will bring unique insights that will make a difference in how the organization achieves its goals. Now, one more thing and one more reminder, have a written plan that you update often. A written plan can help you stay current with industry trends and developments and ensure that you are continuously developing the skills and knowledge you need to succeed in your career, and can help you track your progress and hold yourself accountable for meeting your goals leading to improved performance and greater success. As you develop and set your goals write it down. record everything in your progress. So you can see on the page what your progress is and where you need to focus. I do want to highlight a goal achievement tip this week ensure you have clarity in your goals. Look over what you have written are your goals clear or more abstract? Can you accomplish what you have planned? Is there substance to what you want to do or what you have planned seems to be vague and ambiguous. Be clear on your goals so you have the best chance to achieve them. Goal accomplishment is about overcoming distractions using time management and setting priorities. It often requires sacrifice, choosing to work on a goal instead of something fun. I love accomplishing goals, but it requires us to get our mindset ready, and to implement some key tools to help us along the way. Now let's talk about how to get ourselves ready to achieve our goals. Number one, achievement begins with our mindset. Our mindset is the bridge to everything we set out to do or to choose Not even to try. We need to be growth oriented and believe in ourselves. What are we letting stop ourselves from growth and accomplishment? I want you to write it down right now. What is stopping you? I want you to overcome these obstacles by changing how you view yourself and what you believe that you can accomplish. high performers and high achievers believe in a growth mindset we know we can continue to learn and change for the good, we can continue to improve and that nothing can stop us from attaining that long term goal that we just wrote down. Number two setting great habits and a daily routine are key. Next are our habits and our routine, we can easily fall into a routine that does not move us forward. This happens when we get discouraged or can't seem to prioritize our day's activities are your habits setting you up for success. When we establish habits and routines that set us up for success, we are more likely to get more done and have more energy efficient, well planned habits work for us instead of against us. Good habits are important to our growth and development because they help us to build a strong foundation for success and wellbeing. By establishing positive habits, we can improve our physical and mental health, increase our productivity, and work towards our goals with greater purpose and determination. These habits include good time management, regular exercise and a sensible diet plus sleep, continuous learning, building relationships, and mindfulness and self awareness. Number three, stay organized. How do you start your day? How do you manage your everyday life. Being organized helps reduce stress and anxiety by minimizing the feeling of being overwhelmed and disorganized. Being organized leads to better decisions. staying organized is crucial for personal and professional success, as it allows us to be more productive, focused and in control of our lives. You can stay organized by setting priorities, creating a daily to do list decluttering your area establishing good routines, maximizing technology to help you and evaluate how your systems are helping you. Number four, be persistent. Persistence is not giving up when an obstacle appears or when things are not going in the desired direction. Don't quit, do the self assessment on where you are and where you want to go. What are your actions when your life or a goal starts to slip away? Or seems impossible. They're persistent go getter usually achieves their goals because they will not tolerate themselves giving up. You may fail or not quite achieve what you want, but don't quit. This is often a mindset issue. If you change your mindset, you will change your outcome. Are you determined to achieve your goals? And are you focused? Number five, and sure you surround yourself with supportive people, we can make many changes to how we view the world and our habits but it means nothing. If we have negative unsupportive people around us Do you still have a friend or close relative who gives off negative energy or is jealous or is trying to prevent you from growing, you have to make a decision to clear your life of anything that is keeping you back from making a positive change in your life. The five closest people in your inner circle affects your performance, your attitude, your mindset, your habits, and your overall quality of life have realistically supportive people around you, it will make a difference. When we have a supportive inner circle, we are more likely to feel valued and appreciated. This can boost our self confidence and self esteem, allowing us to approach life with a positive attitude and a sense of purpose. Our inner circle can play a big role in motivating us to achieve our goals and dreams. They can offer encouragement and support when we feel like giving up and help us to move forward towards success. Number six, develop a plan so you stay focused. As I have said many times, you must have a written plan to ensure you can accomplish your goals. A written plan can help you set specific and measurable goals for your career growth, and ensure that you are taking the necessary steps to achieve them. A written plan is something you can review and update so you continue to stay focused, you know where you want to go and what you have already accomplished. Having an individual development plan can help you track your progress and hold yourself accountable for meeting your goals. leading to improved performance and greater success. Goal setting and goal achievement are up to us. These are choices we make because we want something different. We are faced with those choices every day, we can make it easier for ourselves by doing the minimum or we can choose to go for that long term goal which means commitment, committing to putting in a greater effort and committing time to improvement and growth. And that is why setting priorities are so important. That is why habits are so important. We want to maximize what we can accomplish each day not wasting a moment. Now for action today. I know I covered a lot today. The previous two episodes were focused on goal setting and planning. And here are some things that I want you to do today. First, write down any obstacles that may be preventing you from success from being a high performer. And from achieving your long term goal. I want you to face that obstacle. We all have something that we need to keep battling to remain driven. Next, develop a plan to overcome those obstacles. This often requires a mindset exercise to get yourself ready. Finally, go do it. Be persistent, and get ready to accomplish big things in your career and in your life. If you have not already, I want to invite you to download a leadership guide for finance and accounting leaders, you can go to Finance leader academy.com and select Free leadership guide on the main menu. It's free, and it may give you a few ideas for your own leadership development. Thank you. Today I talked about how to prepare yourself for achieving your goals and I highlighted the following points. Number one achievement begins with our mindset. Number two, setting great habits and a daily routine are key. Number three, stay organized. Number four, be persistent. Number five and share you surround yourself with supportive people. And six develop a plan so you stay focused. I'm going to ask you one more important question that is critical to your growth and development. Do you read I read. Reading prepares the mind to learn to grow and to explore and to achieve more. reading challenges us in our thought process and in how we view ourselves and the world. Reading books and articles related to leadership, management and personal development can provide a wealth of information and new perspectives that can help us become better leaders. Reading books and articles that challenge our assumptions and beliefs can help us become more critical thinkers and better problem solvers. I have seen posts on social media lately, where some believe that reading is bad for you. Now that makes no sense to me. I may need to revisit this topic again in the future about what reading can do for you know that opens up our minds and our eyes to different things. So we get better in our everyday walk as leaders. So please read and grow Leaders are readers. The next episode I'll be talking about managing and earning your continuing professional education credits. I've covered this before, but it's very important as we continue to begin what we want to accomplish in this new year. We want to start working on those CPE and get those completed and recorded and turned in on time. I hope you enjoyed the finance leader podcast I am dedicated to helping you grow your leadership skills to change your mindset and to clarify your goals so you advance your career. You can find this episode wherever you listen to podcasts. If this episode helps you Today, please share and leave a quick review so that others may find the podcast. Until next time, you can check out more resources at finance leader academy.com and sign up for my weekly updates so you don't miss an episode of the podcast. And now go lead your team, and I'll see you next time. Thank you