Great things don’t happen by chance. They are dreamt off, planned and worked towards. Setting personal Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) sets you up for achieving the great things you desire. KPIs are values businesses use to measure how effective their objectives are achieved. Setting personal KPIs means setting measurable targets to reach for success.
Define Your Overall Objective
There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it. – Napoleon Hill.
What does success mean to you? Which level do you want to unlock in your finances, career, relationships, ministry or health in the coming months? If you can define what success means to you with regards to for instance your health, you can work towards it. Spend time to think about it, be clear on what you desire and focus your effort, time and work into achieving it.
Set SMART Goals
SMART goals provide structure when setting goals. It is by far the easiest way to set goals with a detailed breakdown of how to achieve it.
Specific
Outline all the aspects in your life you want to grow. Indicate what type of growth you would want to see for each part. Be specific. For instance, Instead of I want to gain weight, make it I want to gain 10kg.
Measurable
You need to be able to track the right metrics. How would you know you’re on the path to achieving your goal? How much work do you have to put into achieving it? How often can you check in? With our weight gain example, decide how you want to measure your progress. Would you stand on the scale every week to see how you’re doing? Do you need to check your haemoglobin level biweekly? How often do you have to check your cholesterol level to make sure you’re doing it right?
Achievable
Your goal has to stretch you but still remain within your limit given the current context of your life. Check if the goal is attainable, considering the constraints and the resources at your disposal. You know the level of your faith. You know how hard you can push yourself. Don’t make it seem like a burden.
Relevant
For your desire to be intense enough, your goals must be purely personal. – Brian Tracy.
Is your goal important to you enough? Are you willing to go all out to get the work done? How does it align to your definition of success or the bigger picture of your life?
Time-bound
When it’s time-bound you know every single effort into working towards the goal counts. Having a deadline creates a false sense of urgency which influences most people to get to work. How long do you want to work towards this goal? What would you have achieved in five months? How about in a year? Going back to our fitness example, let’s redefine the goal to I want to gain 9 kg in 3 months and I plan on gaining 3 kg each month.
Evaluate
Evaluating your performance will show you what needs to be tweaked. During personal evaluations ask yourself if you can do better or why something doesn’t seem to be working. Do this as often as possible so that you can identify problems early and iterate.
Setting clear time-bound goals gives us a sense of direction. It helps us understand how important every energy and time expended on a goal is.
Also published on Medium.