Raising the bar on your goals.
How high do you place the “bar” when you set a goal for yourself? When you define the outcome you want to achieve for your goal, do you go ahead and use it, or do you raise it up?
If you’re not raising it up, you’re not getting the maximum benefit out of yourself when you work to achieve your goal.
My mentor used to challenge me with what she called the “rule of ten” when we talked about goal setting. Whatever outcome I had defined as the successful completion of a stated goal, she would challenge me to raise it by a factor of ten.
I know what you’re thinking, “That’s crazy, I’ll just set myself up to fail!” I thought the same thing when she first started pushing me to keep raising my expectations of myself and definitions of a success achievement of a goal…that is until I tried it and it started working!
You’re probably familiar with the S.M.A.R.T. method of goal setting; goals should be “S”pecific, “M”easurable, “A”ttainable, “R”ealistic, and “T”imely. When first challenged to set a goal and then raise your expectations by ten times, many people worry it violates the “realistic” test of a S.M.A.R.T. goal.
Please remember that “realistic” does not mean “easy.” Realistic means that the outcome is possible to achieve and is somehow within the grasp of your abilities even if at the time you set the goal you’re not quite sure how. A realistic goal should significantly challenge you without being impossible.
If you set a goal that’s too easy to achieve - what I call “gimme goals” - you won’t get the same satisfaction when you achieve the goal, and it tells your brain that you’re only capable of attaining “gimme goals.” It sets you up to create and reinforce limiting beliefs about yourself.
If you set a goal and then raise your expectation of the outcome by ten times, you set your subconscious mind up for a challenge that it’s really good at - figuring out how to deliver on your request. Your subconscious mind loves to do this, it’s what it’s built for, and it’s one of the things it does best. When you pose a really challenging question to your subconscious - and state it in a positive, non-limiting way - your subconscious will get to work trying to create an answer.
If your original goal is to write a book in twelve months, try raising the bar and setting the goal to write a book in a month and a half. How can you write a book in a month and a half? That’s the challenge you want to put your subconscious to work on. It’s certainly not impossible. You might - for example - devote an hour each morning and an hour each evening to writing. Over the course of a month and a half that would be 92 hours of writing - depending on your subject you could very well have a finished book on your hands.
I recently heard an interview on the radio with Neil Diamond. In the interview he recalled that one of his best known (and most requested) songs - Sweet Caroline - was written in about 40 minutes while he was eating breakfast before a studio gig. He had to have three songs to record and he only had two. Talk about setting the bar high!
If you set a goal to close $5000 in sales, what would you have to do to close $50,000 sales?
Years ago I was working on some proposals and I thought I would close about $3000 in sales. What did my mentor do? She challenged me to think about closing $30,000 in sales. By raising my bar, I opened myself to re-evaluate how I was handling the projects. I thought one client might want to spend maybe $1000 or $1500 on their project, but I had neglected to really sit down and listen to what they wanted. In one of our final meetings, I started asking some very open ended questions and listening!
It turns out that I had completely misunderstood their desires. They were looking for a prestige project to set them apart in their industry. I was busy trying to sell them a bare bones solution - get the “yes” and get out - and they wanted all the bells and whistles! In the final meeting I outlined all of the features they had talked about and they said, “Yes, that’s what we want!” I knew it would be a $12,000 project - not $1500. I balked a bit, not wanting to throw out what I thought was such a huge number. When I finally did, they didn’t bat an eye. They asked where they needed to sign to get started. You can bet I was on cloud nine as I walked out of that meeting!
Would I have gone back and really sought out what they wanted if I wasn’t being challenged to raise my bar? I don’t think I would have. It was a very uncomfortable thing for me to do at the time (I was way outside my comfort zone), but at the end of the day it couldn’t have been easier to actually get the project.
I didn’t make my ten-times goal overall, but I did with that client and I felt great about my achievement. Originally I was thinking I would close about $3000 in sales and I closed $12,000 on just one client by raising my bar. Did I close the whole $30,000? Nope. Was I thrilled to close $12,000? In light of my original $3000 goal you bet I was!
I want to challenge you to raise your bar. The next time you set a goal, try raising your expectations of a successful outcome by 10 times and see what happens. If you really put your mind to work on the goal, and open yourself to the new possibilities such a challenge can bring, you can be more successful than you initially thought possible; even when your first thought is, “How the heck am I doing to do this?”
Add comment December 28th, 2005
