For many people, the start of a new year entails making objectives. What are the keys to good goal-setting?

My recommendation is to develop goals that are ambitious yet attainable, as well as metrics to measure achievement and time frames/deadlines.

Prior to goal setting

According to this ClearPoint Strategy article, doing a SWOT analysis may help you create "a high-level strategic planning model that will help you identify where your organization can improve and where it's doing well." SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and assessing these areas of your organization can provide you with a baseline from which you can establish a realistic objective.

The same ClearPoint article also recommends analyzing the market and your previous performance to determine where the industry and your company should be headed. Take feedback from colleagues and workers to gain a ground-floor view, and establish who will be "participating in the goal-setting exercise," as a couple of last considerations to consider before defining your company objectives. The target may be realistically assessed and determined after these factors are taken into consideration.

The goal-setting process

After you've measured and determined a reasonable company objective, the next step is to determine how precise and long-term it is. In terms of specificity, according to this article from Entreprenuer, a hypothetical aim of "raising $10,000 by July 1" is more attainable than "raising capital."

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Setting both short-term and long-term objectives is essential when it comes to the timeline. Short-term objectives should be achievable in a couple of weeks or a year, whereas long-term goals might be established for "five, ten, or even twenty years." It is important to note that long-term objectives are more ambitious than short-term goals while still being reachable.

Finally, according to this article from The Balance Small Business, these objectives need not be mutually incompatible. Rather, they ought to be linked. For example, if your long-term objective is "to achieve $200,000 in sales per year," your short-term goals should be "to achieve $200,000 per year in sales with an interim goal that is a step toward the larger goal."

Setting a company goal based on your strengths may be a reasonable and feasible undertaking. Long-term objectives are accomplished after a succession of short-term objectives have been met. The goal is to establish a strategy that you really believe in and actively pursue. There is no other way to success, as Picasso put it.

Thanks to Donna St. Jean Conti at Business 2 Community whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.