You will never shoot a target you do not see. In the same way, you will never reach a goal you do not have. Goal setting helps us define priorities and move in the direction we desire.
In this episode, Keith Abraham joins me to discusses the importance of goal-setting in achieving personal, professional, and profitable success. He also builds on his expertise and shares the value of knowing your goal drivers and having emotional anchors. Listen to the episode to learn Keith’s sentiments on the best practices for goal setting.
Keith Abraham is multi-award winning. A best-selling author of five books, published in 12 languages. In his 25-year speaking career he has presented to more than 1.6 million people across 39 countries. In the past 2 years, Keith has transitioned, and created a Purpose-Built Virtual Studio and delivered 239 Virtual Presentations from his home in Brisbane to 67,500 people in 39 different countries.
If you want to learn how to create better goals and bring them to fruition, this episode is for you.
Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:
- Learn the value of curiosity as a key leadership trait.
- Discover the importance of setting clear goal setting in personal and organisational contexts.
- Find out your goal drivers and why emotional anchors work best in goal setting.
Resources
- Connect with Keith Abraham on LinkedIn and his website
- Take Keith’s Goal Driver Assessment here.
- Download Keith’s resources on setting clear goals here.
- Why SMART Goals Don’t Work by Keith Abraham
Episode Highlights
[0:41] Pushing for Creativity in the New Normal
- The transition to the new normal allowed for the hybrid work setup.
- Many people now want flexibility in how they work. This ‘office resistance’ creates a challenge in teams because not everyone is on the same page.
- In such cases, team collaboration can help. The team can come together and review organisation goals, projects, and other ideas.
- The team can also use the huddle to review and think about what’s next for the company.
- These activities trigger curiosity and bring out creativity among the team members.
[02:18] Get to Know Keith Abraham
- Keith is a certified speaking professional and award-winner keynote speaker. He has over 25 years of speaking experience and delivered over 1.6 million presentations.
- His expertise in goal achievement placed him as one of the world’s premier thought leaders on accelerating performance among leaders and CEOs of billion-dollar companies.
- He has recently created a purpose-built virtual studio where he was able to deliver over 200 presentations from his home in Brisbane.
- Keith is also the author of five books published in 12 languages.
[4:10] Curiosity as a Key Leadership Trait
- Curiosity is a leader’s antidote to being stuck, stale, and stagnant.
- Flip your statements into quality questions and challenge the status quo. Don’t be better than your competitors. Instead, be different.
- At 23, Keith attended the week-long Rotary Youth Leadership Award (RYLA), and this is where he fell in love with goal-setting.
- He turned his passion into a profession and started providing presentations to different youth groups. After a year, Keith was able to replace his and his wife’s income.
- Keith believes he built his business from referrals through mentors, coaches, and the people he met at conferences.
[12:27] Tenacity and Making Impact
- Keith attributes most of his success to his tenacity and relationship with clients.
- He treats his speaking engagements as a business of making the most significant impact on his clients. A lasting impression gets people to keep coming back.
- Success is in the eyes of the beholder — it can be an outcome, process, or feeling.
- On the other hand, personal success is providing a lifestyle and leveraged income for his family and being a living example.
- Leaders should go beyond positivity, optimism, and hope. Instead, focus on longevity or legacy.
[24:18] Key Takeaways
- Surround yourself with great people.
- Know that you are a poor judge of a good investment. Instead, invest in mentors.
- Find gratitude in the challenges. The more grateful you are, the more fortunate you become.
- Comparison is a thief. Do not compare your Chapter 1 with someone else’s Chapter 20.
[26:51] Importance of Clear Goal Setting
- Keith emphasises that goal setting is as vital as oxygen.
- Now is the time to set goals for yourself. Have a vision of the future and not a memory of the past.
- The only way to get through the present circumstances is to have the vision moving forward. It means having goals personally, professionally, physically, and profitably.
- Understand what drives you, what you desire, and how you can strengthen your determination.
- There will be growing and transformational issues along the way, but Keith points out that that is the only way you can progress.
[29:43] Goal Drivers and Why SMART Goals Don’t Work
- In Keith’s research, successful and accomplished people have an emotional, physical, and mental connection to their goals.
- Goal drivers are the emotional anchors that push you toward your goals.
- Keith’s Goal Driver Assessment Tool helps explain your drivers to help you move closer to your goals.
- Learn more about the Goal Driver Assessment here.
[36:52] Notes on Goal Setting
- Start where you are right now. It’s okay to not have everything in alignment.
- Your goals do not have to be big ones. Do not ‘goal overwhelm’.
- If your goals overwhelm you, break them into smaller ones.
- Visit KeithAbraham.com for more tips and insights on effective goal setting.
[39:36] The Motivation of Progress
- Keith recommends his clients keep a progress journal and do a daily progress check-in.
- People need to feel a sense of achievement. People get motivated by seeing their progress.
- Momentum defeats doubt. Doubt keeps us on our toes and helps us grow, but it is not a place you want to stay in.
- Reframe your thoughts. Remember that thoughts create feelings and dictate what we do or do not do.
- Keith’s research found that people have eight driving emotions: feel successful, purposeful, inspired, happy, organised, respected, confident, and relaxed.
[49:35] Importance of Organizational Goal Setting
- Leaders should get their teams together and ensure that the team has overarching goals that feed the organisational goals.
- Have resets. Review what you learned for the past two years, reset the goals, and refocus your intentions, activities, and daily habits.
- Teams cannot genuinely collaborate virtually. It is crucial to meet and have actual conversations about goals.
- Keith also shares the Japanese concept of Nemawashi, or coming together and planning to ensure the success of a significant change.
Quotes
[12:36] Keith: ‘I think some people fall in love with the applause. I fell in love with, ‘how do I make the biggest impact and love to the clients that are paying?’’
[11:26] Renee: ‘You can’t focus if you don’t have clarity and you can’t have clarity without focus. But if there’s no action, it’s one-dimensional.’
[18:42] Renee: ‘Positivity is about the here and now. Optimism is about now. And hope is for the future.’
[28:20] Keith: ‘If you’re waiting for someone to give you permission to step into your potential, then let me be the person to give you permission.’
[37:36] Keith: ‘You don’t have to get too far ahead of yourself. I think that’s what happens with a lot of people is we’re waiting for things to be perfect. What’s important is you start where you stand.’
About Keith
Keith Abraham is a professional keynote speaker and goal achievement expert at Passionate Performance. He specialises in creating content, concepts, resources and opportunities to help people turn their goals into reality. He is also the creator of the Goal Driver Formula, a tool designed to provide insights to help individuals achieve their goals.
You can reach Keith through LinkedIn.
Enjoy This Podcast?
Leadership in changing times can be difficult, but you can adopt certain traits to get your team through it. You can also join mentorship programs to gain the skill you need.
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To leading the future,
Renée
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