Growing up I always made goals throughout life. Some were more serious than others, however, they were still goals. For example, I always wanted to be better at school than my older brother. If you knew my brother, you would know that he is a genius. He was a straight-A student whereas I was not. Having this goal to be more like him helped me further my education and strive to be the best student I could be. It paid off in the end. I went from the girl who was told she would never go to college, to the girl who graduated with her master’s in 2018 with Summa Cum Laude. Without my brother and without the goal of being smarter than him, I may not have gone that far or pushed myself to better my education.
Goals are something we as humans look forward to accomplishing throughout our lives. They can range from “When I get up, I am going to make my bed this morning” to “In one year, I would like to present at a national conference.” (This may or may not be on my list).
Without goals, what do we have to look forward to? How would we push ourselves to perform better in life?
Here at Swift Kick, we have a weekly goal tracking sheet for our team. We each pick the top 6 “rocks” as we call them, to meet each week. If we succeed in reaching all of our rocks, it goes toward our overall team goal. If we keep that number above a certain threshold, like 97%, we get a team gift. We, as a group, look forward to each week by encouraging one another to complete their rocks and help each other out if they are falling behind on theirs. There is nothing better than a team that works well together.
Outside of the team, I have my own work and personal goals that I am currently working on, such as:
- Be able to solve a situation on my own without extra work assistance.
- Have an intern one day who will look up to me as their supervisor/mentor. (Shout out to Sabina for being mine!)
- Connect more on a personal level with clients and become friends with them.
- Complete a 60-minute workout without any breaks in between.
- Take all of my nieces and nephews out for a special day once a year.
It is important for me to be able to share these goals with all of you so that I am held accountable through my team and community to push myself to be a better version of who I am and to improve on reaching my goals.
My challenges for you:
Create personal goals for yourself – Make a list of goals for 2022. What do you want to accomplish within a month, half-year, and year. Hold yourself accountable by rewarding yourself at the end of each goal accomplished.
Gather your team and come up with weekly or monthly team goals – Make team goals! There is nothing better than a team working together to accomplish something. They could be individual goals like ours is, or you can make group goals. Divy it up and see how far your team gets. I recommend starting with simple goals and growing from there.
Share your goals – Be accountable. Hold yourself to a standard and share your personal goals with your team or someone you trust. If you create a goal and keep it to yourself, you can always alter this goal and never actually push yourself to success. When it comes to team goals, each week share the progress! Be positive about it. Even if the goal was not reached. That is okay. Goals are not always made to be met every time. That is the reason it is a goal. It is something to look forward to and achieve right away. It is meant to challenge you.
Create an incentive for you and your team – This is one of my favorites. Every time we reach a goal, each quarter there is a different assentive. The one we are currently working towards is a $75 gift card for a family event. This means we each can take our family out and have fun! Some previous incentives we have had were: $75 towards your favorite bottle of *insert choice of drink here*, attend a Broadway show as a team, a personal care item, cloth shopping, and so much more.
