Qualitative and quantitative adjustments for goals.
The pursuit of significant goals constantly meets obstacles
along the way. The temptation is strong to quit on your goals when this
happens. However, those who quit will never get to see what life is like on the
other side of their goals. There is need for people to find a way to forge
ahead in the face of opposition. In this article we will have a look at some of
the adjustments you can make to your pursuit to increase your chances of
success.
When it becomes difficult to reach your goals, don’t fall
quickly to the temptation to revise them. The more prudent approach is to
revise your strategy. The wisdom of Einstein reminds us that insanity is to do
the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Since we are
clear that you are not insane, what are some of the adjustments you can make to
your pursuit of your goals to help you get there faster.
I am making certain assumptions here. They are as follows.
You have some goals you are pursuing. You have a strategy you are applying to
help you get there.
Categories
I am looking at two broad categories of adjustments you can
take and I will try to give examples in each case. Consider the case of James
who is a salesperson in the financial services sector. When he started the
year, he set himself an income target of Kes. 3 Million by the end of December
2021. So far he has only managed to raise 1 Million. Seeing as this is the
second half of the year, he has a lot of work to do to catch up. In his
strategy, he needed to see 5 people a day Monday to Friday to stand a chance of
getting to his goal. James has been faithful in meeting five people for over ¾
of the time in which he has been pursuing this. His problem clearly is not in
the numbers he was supposed to be racking up.
Grant Cardone in his book the 10X Rule proposes a relook at
the effort we put into pursuing our goals. He opines that we often
underestimate the effort needed to get us to our goals. If James was to follow
Cardone’s advice, then his adjustment would need to be quantitative. He would
want to try raising the number of daily appointments from 5 to 7. Whether that
is practical depends on how long his meetings last and whether he has the
numbers to increase the engagement. Looking at his closing ratio, it is
possible that this forty percent increase in the number of people he is seeing
would result in him getting as close as possible to his target by the end of
the year.
Sometimes all you need is a quantitative adjustment. If
increasing the quantity of your activity will get you closer to your goals,
then by all means jump on board and engage more people, increase the number of
hours you are at it or whatever numerical increase is represented by your
activity.
James could also be having a qualitative challenge. The
calibre of people he is meeting, how closely do they align with his ideal
clients? For as long as they don’t qualify on a number of criteria, the battle
is going to be tougher for James. His remedy will be to take a fresh look at
the list of people he has been meeting to ensure that they meet the strict
criteria of his ideal clients. Qualitative increase in his case means he sees
more of the people who fit in with his profile and less of those who are off
the mark. By applying these strict criteria, he might end up seeing fewer
people but this will be the right people. Chances are high that he will close
more lucrative business.
Another qualitative adjustment he can make is to improve his
closing ratio by improving his closing skills. He should ask himself questions
like, what can I do to increase my chances of closing more clients? Such
adjustments will take him closer to reaching his goals.
Blended Approach
More often than not, we need both numerical and iterative
adjustments to get us to where we need to go. What would happen to your results
if you added an extra hour of activity every day? How would adjusting the
number of attempts affect your outcome? If you are looking for a job and making
applications, ask yourself what you will achieve if you increased the number
you are sending every week. That would be a quantitative adjustment. A
qualitative adjustment in your case would be refining your resume and cover
letters and also filtering through the companies and positions you are applying
to so that you focus on those that tally with your skills and cultural
disposition. A combination of quantitative and qualitative adjustments well
thought through and implemented is likely to get you to the other side of your
goals faster.
Let’s experiment with one of your goals for this year. What
is the goal? What strategy are you pursuing for its realization? What feedback
are you getting from your action? What adjustments can you make to increase
your chances of hitting the mark? Be sure to review regularly and lets see
where you end up in December.
PS: One of the qualitative adjustments you can make is to
get a coach to help you through the process of pursuing your goals. if you are
looking for someone to walk with you in the pursuit of your goals feel free to
reach out to me. Together we can achieve more. Email: asenasam@gmail.com
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