Last year I was invited to join a 'goal-setting group' of seven people with their own businesses. The idea, new to me, was a simple one - we meet up for one day each quarter and get an hour each to talk through our goals for the next quarter, our progress, and any obstacles.

So far I've been to one meeting, and it was great. I had only met one of the participants before (the guy who invited me) but the other participants turned out to be smart, funny, and non-judgemental. Even though I had not put much time at all into preparation, I came away much clearer about what I wanted.

Obviously it's good to be reminded that you are not the only one facing challenges with your goals, and that there are others in the same boat, especially when, like me, you work for yourself. Beyond that, though, talking through my goals out loud to other people acted as a reality check - it brought home very powerfully that I didn't have enough time to achieve all of my goals by the time I thought I wanted them. It forced me to prioritise my most important goal (getting my book written) and put the rest on the back burner.

Getting together in a group like this and publicly declaring your goals taps into two of the powerful principles identified by psychologist Robert Cialdini in his book Influence: Science and Practice: consistency and commitment.

When you identify yourself as having a particular role, or as being a particular kind of person (in this case, a 'goal achiever') it makes you much more likely to act in a way that is consistent with that role (actually taking action to achieve the goals). Cialdini found that the human mind strives for consistency.

Also, when you make a public commitment to something, you are far more likely to actually do it than if you just make a vague promise to yourself.

Two more great things about a goal-setting group: one is the cost - absolutely free (apart from the time cost of one day a quarter), and the other is the opportunity that the shared purpose gives you to get to know some other people in far more depth than a networking event would give you. Apart from the mutual support, at least two of the people in the group may be helpful to my business at some point in the future, either as employers or suppliers.

So in summary:

1. To make it easier to achieve your goals, get together with a few other people (ideal numbers 5-7) and form a goal-setting group

2. Beyond mutual support, sharing your goals with others gives you a powerful reality check

3. You also harness two powerful psychological forces: consistency and commitment

4. Coming together for a common purpose is a great way of 'depth networking'

Bonus tip:

Use the web to stay in touch with your group in between meetings. There are many free 'social networking' platforms on the web (although bear in mind that if you're very unlucky a free service can disappear on the whim of the owners at any moment). We used Yahoo Groups because the ads are not too intrusive, you can set up a private group, it allows you to post files and set up a meeting calendar, and it can notify you by email whenever someone posts a new message. 

Well, I've been writing a book, and it's taken up all my time. It's finished now though! So I should be able to make a few more entries on the blog. More about the book in the next entry.

At the beginning of November 2005 a respected publisher contacted me out of the blue and commissioned me to write a book on 'Achieving Your Goals' (I realise that after that opening sentence, I'm going to have to work hard to re-establish rapport with any aspiring authors, whose first thought would have been "Lucky b*****d!").

The bad news was that because of commitments in January, I had to complete the book by Christmas.

As it happened, I had already freed up that time to write a book. The one I had been planning was the "Practical EQ" book on emotional intelligence that I have been promising myself to write for a while now. At the last meeting of my goal-setting group (more about goal-setting groups in a future article) it became very clear that there were not enough hours in the day to do this and all my other goals as well, so as the book was the most important, I cleared the decks of everything else until after Christmas.

So, I had the space available, and I was able to get the manuscript to the publishers on time. Incidentally, the number of people who have said "Wow, how did you manage it in that time?" is beginning to make me think this was quite an achievement, although while I was writing it I was mainly aware of how much time I was wasting.

The book I wrote, as it turned out, was not the one I had been planning - but I'm not complaining, because things turned out better than I was expecting. If I had written my original book, I would have been happy - but then I would have had to find a publisher, something I had no clue about.

This way, I have a publisher, I was paid an advance while I was writing the book, and of course having to commit to other people to meet the deadline provided an extra incentive on the days I didn't feel like writing.

I have learned a few things from this experience:

Firstly, this tremendous lucky break would not have happened unless I had made myself ready for it by clearing the time to write a book. OK, the publishers would probably still have contacted me, but if the time was already committed to some other project, I could not have said yes - or at least, the lack of enthusiasm as I thought about the hassle of making the time available would have come across in my reply and put them off signing me. So:

- make yourself ready for what you want, otherwise it won't happen.

Secondly:

- when you do make yourself ready for what you want, sometimes what you get is better than you expected!

Finally, I undertook a few assignments in 2005 that I wasn't totally enthusiastic about - because deep down I didn't feel ready for them. Not surprisingly, they were the ones that didn't turn out that well. The money was pretty good, but the wear and tear on the spirit was such that I'm going to be much more careful about what I accept in future. By contrast, it took about a tenth of a second to decide to accept the book commission. This suggests that:

- if you're not 100% enthusiastic about your goal, you're not ready for it

- so what do you need to do to make yourself ready?

------------

Update - the book is now published!

The designers at Dorling Kindersley have done a fantastic job (the cover is a bit plain but inside there is a wealth of diagrams, attractive layout and beautiful colour photographs) making it easy to read for even the busiest reader. I'm knocked out by how it's turned out.

Anyway, if you order the book from Amazon and send me a copy of your email receipt, I'lll send you a free PDF article on 'The Seven Biggest Mistakes In Goal-Setting'! Email the copy of your receipt to: andy@coachingleaders.co.uk