We all set goals in our lives for different areas that are important to us every day. These goals are usually attainable. But one of the worst things a business owner can do is set business goals so high, that they are unreachable. To be accurate with hitting your target, your numbers to aim for must be within reach.



Every business owner has heard the advice to aim high to achieve high results. Aiming way too high however, could have serious consequence with the arrow falling back to the ground rather than hitting your target. In order to establish realistic goals, you will also need to set intermediate goals as well as way to achieve them. You will know if you have any chance at reaching your income target once you have gone through the goal-setting process. Don't be daydreaming about the lottery when you are setting your income goals. Ground this process in reality.

You can start the process by pulling a number out of the air, then go back and determine what it's going to take to hit that number. Kind of like eating an elephant, it takes one bite at a time to establish a realistic goal for generating cash. For example, if your plan is to make $10,000 a month, break it into weeks, showing you need $2,500 a week to hit the goal, or $333 a day. Look at your sales or production goal to determine if the current level of production can earn an income of $333 a day and if so, maybe the number was not as arbitrary as initially thought.

On the other hand, if production indicates you can only produce enough to make $250 a day, then the weekly and monthly and subsequently annual income project will have to be lowered to meet expectations. You can then look at your production schedule to determine if any streamlining can be done to improve output as well as looking at many issues that could slow you down and lower your income projections. Whenever you pencil in a number you have to also write down how you are going to meet that daily and weekly goal, taking into account anything that might hinder you achieving that goal.

The most devastating affect of setting lofty goals that cannot be met is the disappointment that follows. Individually, if targets are missed, goals set too high, and expectations unreal, you could be at risk to simply quit trying. What this means to the business owner is they can end up closing up shop and trying something else. For any employees, it can mean the loss of their job. Setting the goals at a realistic level and hitting them is cause for celebration, but only for a few minutes as you now start looking at the next level in the goal to meet your long-range projections.