Near-term goals

When Royal Robbins was tempted to give up on his audacious first solo ascent on El Capitan, he reasoned that he might instead go just a few more feet. He put aside the notion of achieving the summit and instead focused on what he could accomplish right now.

So, he set a near-term goal for himself, one that he could focus on intently, but also one that was directly related to his vision of standing on the summit. Thus, he set his goals in bite-sized chunks (just go another 5 feet!). And immediately after he achieved that goal, he set a new one (to go the next 5 feet).

This is what successful business owners do all the time. They create bite-sized goals, which are directly related to fulfilling their vision, and they set new goals as soon as they achieve the old.

There are six characteristics for effective company goals. Company goals should be:

1. directly related to fulfilling the company vision.

2. challenging.

3. reasonable.

4. measurable.

5. no more than three in total.

6. established at least yearly (and preferably more often).