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Smash Your 2023 Goals With The GIST Framework

If You must achieve anything meaningful this year (and beyond) You must learn how to set and smash Goals.

This is what what Brian Tracy has to say about goals

Success equals Goals; All else is Commentary

I want to believe You know what a Goal is? I bet You do

Of course You have heard people shouting “Goal!!!!!!” while watching football matches?

Exactly, the Goal of football teams is to get the leather ball into the Goal-post of their opponents as many times as they can.. that is why their supporters holler “Goal!!!!” whenever that happens. AKA, the Goal has been achieved [scored, smashed].

The Cambridge online dictionary defines a Goal as

a purpose, or something that you want to achieve

In the case of Footballers, their Goal is to get the leather ball into the goal posts of their opponents more times than their opponents.

Except You are a footballer too, your goals should be different.

An undergraduate student for example can have a Goal to get a 5.00 GPA at the end of the Semester, a worker can have a goal to get a promotion or pay raise at the end of the appraisal period etc.

Because of the insatiability of human wants, it is possible to get your goal clustered and as such the goals get confusing and You end up not achieving anything at the end of the day.

Enter SMART Goals…

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Image Credit: https://printivo.com/blog

SMART is an acronym for

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Realistic
  • Achievable/Attainable and
  • Time-Bound

I will not go into details trying break these down, I already did in my Goal-setting book. Click here to download it for FREE

Now it is time to get the GIST.

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SMART goals are great but Goals without action are but mere wishes.

Let me gist You about the GIST.

GIST is also an acronym meaning

  • Goals
  • Ideas
  • Steps
  • Tasks

Let me take some time to break this down for You.

So You have set your SMART Goals take for example:

I want to make 500,000 Naira by 31st January 2023

You agree with me the goal above is

  • Specific i.e. You want to make 500k, it is
  • Measurable because by the 31st of January You will check your account statement/balance and know whether You have made 500k or not,
  • depending on your capacity, it is Attainable and Realistic and of course,
  • it has a deadline so it is Time-bound.

So what next, go to Bed and wake up by 31st January to check your account balance?.

So how do You ensure the SMART Goals You have set get the Action they need to be achieved?

That is where the GIST framework comes in.

G

The G in GIST is for GOAL, so take one Goal from your list of Goals,

I

Bring up ideas on how You can achieve that Goal

In the example I gave, You want to make 500k, how can You possibly make 500k in one month?

  • Get a Job that pays 500k per month?
  • Offer products/services to 5 people/organisations that will pay 100k each?
  • Sell a 10k product to 50 people?
  • Sell a 1k product to 500 people?

The ideas can go on and on, the goal is to turn on the creative parts of your Brain..You can come up with as many creative ideas as possible on how to achieve the Goal You have picked.

S

The S in GIST is for Steps

Out of the many ideas You have come up with, pick one that You can start working on immediately.

Let’s assume You have decided to offer a 10k product to 50 people, now break it down.

  • Which product will You sell?
  • Who are the 50 people need this product/service?
  • How will You reach them?
  • How will You convince them to buy the product?
  • How will they pay for the product?
  • How will You deliver the product?

I believe things are getting clearer?

and finally

T

The T in GIST is for Tasks

Now that You know the Steps to take on the workable Idea to achieve your Goal, You need to break your activities into Tasks.

Which tasks/actions will You start taking immediately.

If the product You to sell it a book or course for instance, How many pages of the book will You write today?

  • How will the Book Cover design be done?
  • Who will edit the book?
  • Who will design the website for selling the book?
  • Which social media accounts will You open to publicize the book?
  • Which ads will You run?
  • You get the full GIST now?

In summary everything I have been trying to say is, set Goals that are Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic and Time-bound (AKA SMART).

Once You have your SMART goals set, do not go to sleep on them, you will not smash them that way.

You need to get into the GIST.. Break the individual Goals down into Ideas, the ideas into Steps and the steps into Task.

In the words of CNN’s Richard Quest,

whatever you’re up to in 2023 (and the years ahead)…. I hope it’s profitable

I wish You all the best.

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