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lt;p>Do you wish that you could squeeze more success and victory out of your business?

After examining stretch goals a few months ago, I believe a redefinition of Aiming High is in order.

Aiming High, as I have mentioned in the past, is a method that I have used to demand and achieve greater performance out of myself. It is not difficult, it doesn’t require you to be a genius. All you need to be is ambitious.

Aiming High requires you to do the following three things:

1. Set Stretch Goals
2. Motivate yourself to achieve these high-aiming goals
3. Utilize the Small Wins strategy to make steep goals more manageable

Setting Stretch Goals

Stretch Goals is a tactic that General Electric’s former CEO, Jack Welch had espoused.

The Stretch Goal philosophy is simple and one that I have mentioned before: set a very ambitious, even seemingly impossible objective, and you would be surprised with the results.

Welch says that we will often achieve these difficult tasks and if not, we will in the very least accomplish phenomenal results, better than if we aimed much lower.

Since this strategy can unveil to you just how much you can actually accomplish, it would be foolish not to use Stretch Goals. Aiming lower means you are generating inefficient results. Using Stretch Goals, on the other hand, will allow to stretch every last drop of success out of your business.

Then, like a muscle, your business will be poised to do even heavier lifting, so setting even more ambitious goals will yield that much more impressive results!

If you have read my article on Why Your Business Can Be the Next Google, you know that the only obstacle preventing you from being as big or successful as you would like is yourself. You have to actually try to be that large or profitable in order to make it happen. If it is your dream for your business to be that successful, by all means, aim for it!

A word of advice: being ambitious is stressful. If you did not achieve your actual target, but still have gotten stellar results, you should still be very proud and praise your staff. Never being satisfied is a sure fire way to seep motivation out of yourself and your employees.

Motivating Yourself

This is probably the most important part of Aiming High. You can set the most ambitious, superhero-like goals in the world. If you have no motivation to back your goals up, your goals are as good as garbage.

With enough motivation, you will go to the ends of the earth to achieve what it is you are looking for. Motivation is a very powerful driving force and if you want something badly enough, you will find a way to do it.

That said, getting yourself motivated can be difficult. Sometimes the desire to get something accomplished is all you need. Oftentimes you need more than that.

Check out the links in my last post for a treasure trove of information on motivation and motivational hacks. I will be posting my own guide to motivational tips soon.

To motivate your staff to move these objectives forward, read this article.

Small Wins

So you have set some ambitious goals and are all hyped up to get started. By all means, go right ahead.

However, goals this ambitious can sometimes be discouraging. You definitely don’t want any discouraging forces present when try to keep your staff and yourself motivated.

What to do? Divide these Stretch Goals into smaller sub-goals. Completing each of these mini goals is a success, or “Small Win”.

Using this strategy will make steep goals appear much more scaleable as if you are turning a steep cliff into a tall staircase or ladder. You are still climbing the same distance, you are just making it easier to climb.

. . .

My Aiming High technique is constantly being tweaked and reformed to make it a more and more effective strategy at setting and tackling dreams of ambition. Expect future posts on new ways to improve upon this technique.

Does anyone have any thoughts on Aiming high or how it can be better?

Do you have mounting objectives that seem impossible to scale? Do you wish there was a way to make them more manageable?

Those of you who have practiced aiming high, you may have noticed that this creates a seemingly large workload for you. It turns out that there is a basic but proven way to handle large and insurmountable tasks, a technique called “Small Wins”.

I will discuss the small wins strategy and also a key philosophy of former General Electric CEO, Jack Welch and how these two techniques work together in achieving high aiming, steep goals.

What are “Small Wins”?

When you divide a large goal or task into smaller, manageable parts, you are practicing the “Small Wins” technique. Some obvious benefits of this technique include saving yourself from discouragement by large, looming, seemingly impossible to complete tasks, as well as being able to see definite steps towards completion of these larger goals.

What are Stretch Goals?

The term “Stretch Goals” was a term coined by Jack Welch, former CEO of GE and considered by many to be one of the greatest managers ever. I had first heard about Stretch Goals about a year ago, but it wasn’t until I read a quote of his in Jack Welch on Leadership where I found a striking resemblance of his stretch goal philosophy to something else…

“We have found that by reaching for what appears to be the impossible, we often actually do the impossible; and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably wind up doing much better than we would have done.”

We see here that Welch’s stretch goal philosophy and my aiming high philosophy are very similar. The fact that Welch, an extremely respected manager, has managed by this philosophy adds a lot of merit to the belief that setting high-aiming goals will yield stellar results.

Knowing this, one should look to utilize stretch goals whenever possible: both in their business and in their personal life in order to obtain the best outcomes possible.

Putting Stretch Goals and Small Wins together

Reaching for the impossible, while not as impossible as it may seem, can still be very difficult and discouraging. It may help encourage someone who is aiming high and setting ambitious goals to use the small wins technique as well.

In other words, to obtain the best results without becoming overwhelmed by your stretch goals, you should set these goals and then divide them into more manageable sub-parts or “small wins”.

This way, you will be able to see defined and measured progress towards your main goal. By making these smaller and consistent strides, your key objective will appear closer and closer with every small win you accomplish. Utilizing small wins is essential to preventing doubt, while also providing you an additional metric of success before your business is profitable.

Has small wins helped keep anyone else motivated? What about stretch goals?

Do you want to double your profits or quadruple your sales? I have news for you: most business owners wont because they don’t think they can; or worse–they just don’t try hard enough.

You can aim high when setting objectives, but it takes a lot more than setting ambitious goals to actually see any real achievement.

It is this fact that can lead to a lot of failures or inadequate results and is why it is important that anyone attempting to aim high ensure they are not practicing this technique halfheartedly.

There are 2 elements to the Aiming High technique that I have previously written about:

• Setting high goals
• Motivation

Lets talk about each one and how not practicing each element properly can lead to failure.

Setting high goals

If you want to experience true success, you can’t limit yourself by lowering your expectations on what you think you can achieve.

It is very important that you shoot as high as you can, and believe that you can get there as long as you try.

How aiming high can fail when setting goals

Aiming high can fail when setting goals in a number of ways. Firstly, setting goals that don’t aim high enough will limit your success and erect mental barriers that will prevent you from shooting even further. This will give you inadequate results and prevent you from attaining profit or growth that you were otherwise capable of achieving.

Take a look at your goals and ask yourself if you can push them even further. If aiming even higher seems unreasonable or unattainable, chances are you have at least a decently ambitious goal.

Another trouble spot can be setting goals that are unattainable, or too high-reaching. Make sure you aren’t pushing yourself too hard where you will burn out quickly.

Finding the right balance can be difficult which is why setting some type of margin of error will help. Allow yourself some leeway from any deviations from your goal so you are still satisfied with the result. Not setting a margin of error can lead to disappointment since you are allowing yourself a much smaller chance at success. Just make sure you don’t set a margin that is too wide or too narrow.

Motivation

If you aren’t motivated to make these ambitious goals happen, then these goals are useless. Not only do you need to set these goals, you need to want to accomplish them. Then you must be willing to commit as much time and hard work as possible to achieve them.

The small steps that get you closer to your final, high aiming goal are most likely not what motivates you. They may be slight motivators, tiny reinforcers and give you some feeling of achievement, but what generally really motivates you is your desire for the end result. Your commitment to that end result is what drives you. If you want something bad enough, you are going to work hard to make it happen.

How lack of motivation can cause aiming high to fail

Aiming high requires A LOT of motivation, so make sure you are setting ambitious goals for something that you are actually committed to accomplishing. If the desire and motivation isn’t there, you wont meet or exceed your goal. Having the drive and motivation is key to practicing aiming high successfully.

The trick is to find something that you really want as the end result. If your goal doesn’t directly tie with something you really want, try to pair your goal with some other award that you desire. That way, the goal is the outcome that you crave.

For example, profits, which will often be an end goal, aren’t that enjoyable in and of themselves. Its the status the income awards you, or what you can buy with the money that is exciting. Attaining a net income level of $1 million feels a lot more fulfilling than generating profits of $995,000. Why? The million dollar milestone suggests the status of being a millionaire. It isn’t the extra $5000 that generates the motivation and excitement, it is the status it grants you. Thus, tying an end goal of profits to a particular status goal or a gift will help in motivating you to work for these profits.

Update 10/17 – After learning more about Jack Welch’s philosophy of Stretch Goals, I decided it is best to modify my definition of Aiming High to the following: aiming high consists of two parts: a) setting high-aiming, Stretch Goals for yourself or your business, and b) having enough motivation or finding the motivation to accomplish them. Also, utilizing a Small Wins strategy can often help to accomplish these ambitious goals.

Has anyone incorporated aiming high into their own life and found it to be successful? Any thoughts or concerns about incorporating this technique into running your business?

A few weeks ago, I mentioned a concept called aiming high in one of my posts. I think it is very important to understand just what aiming high is and how important it is for your success.

However, it is also important to know how it is especially appropriate to apply this concept to your daily practice of running your business.

For those of you who want a quick synopsis of aiming high, aiming high is the practice of setting high and ambitious goals and being motivated enough to achieve them. It thrives on the belief that the only barrier that stands between you and success is yourself: what you believe you can and cannot achieve.

If you don’t believe you can attain something, there is no way you are going to get there. However, if you believe that you can accomplish something, and you are motivated enough to reach for it, there is no reason that you can’t get what you are aiming for.

Every operation and department of you business should aim high. If you don’t aim high enough, you may forestall higher growth, greater efficiency or increased productivity that you were otherwise capable of achieving. No matter which measure you use: revenue growth, profit growth, ROI, reduction in cost of goods sold or any other, you should always aim as high as you can.

Here’s the rub: aiming too high may discourage you, but not aiming high enough may stop you from growing to your fullest potential. It is impossible to know how high is too high, but I would suggest aiming slightly higher than what seems reasonable and allow some margin for what you still deem acceptable. That way, you are not erecting any mental barriers that may stop rapid growth, but you are allowing yourself some margin of error so that you aren’t discouraged.

Let’s look at an example of a high achieving student named Ryan. Ryan wants to get the best grades possible and has set a goal of receiving a 100 on every test. While it is admirable that he is aiming as high as possible, Ryan knows that with this goal, anything under 100 would mean failure. He will either be unhappy with his actual result, or find it too hard to achieve on certain tests. Ryan decides to allow for a 5 point margin of error, where he is effectively saying: “I will aim for a 100, but I will still be happy with a 95″. This way, he is still aiming high with a challenging margin, but getting slightly less than his goal is still a success.

Notice that Ryan didn’t aim for a 98, he aimed for a 100. He aimed for the highest possible grade on his test that he could have achieved. Since getting a 100 is a possible outcome there is no reason to set a barrier lower than that.

The same applies to your business. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t create mental barriers that may stop you from realizing your fullest potential. Why aim for moderate growth when there is a possibility for high growth? If you create a motivated, high aiming culture in your workplace, you and your employees will all benefit from it and will all work together to create an atmosphere that fosters a much greater amount of success than if you didn’t aim high.

Why can’t it? What stops your business from being the next Google?

It turns out that business owners fabricate many reasons why they can’t experience the same massive success and resort to competing at the bottom of the business “food chain”.

It is for this reason I would like to introduce the concept of aiming high and how it can lead to enormous success.

So many people go into business on their own for the sole purpose of not having a boss. However, other than not having a boss, every single other aspect of their work life remains the same. Many entrepreneurs will still work the same (or more) hours and work to maintain the same “salary”.

Many fail to fully understand that owning your own business grants you the power to grow your income exponentially, rather than just a measly 5% per year.

So many business owners work for a salary only and not look for any large income growth. They forsake looking for serious growth in their business and instead are content with the status quo.

Why? Because growing your business to be the next Google or Microsoft or even to the size of a mid-cap company seems out of reach, it seems like a long shot and this discourages a lot of people.

Any real growth, for that matter represents two things: a) something quite difficult to obtain and b) requires you to sacrifice some of your “salary” now to invest into your business.

I would like to discuss this first issue for this post, but the concept of giving up some of your salary now for growth later is a topic I definitely want to touch on soon.

I want you to seriously ask yourself: Why can’t my business become the next Google, Toyota, GE or any other large, successful company?

You may answer this question with:

• “I don’t have the funding that these companies have”
• “I don’t have the resources that these companies have”
• “I don’t have the creative talent that these companies have”
• “I don’t have the products that these companies have”

And all of these may be true. But you need to remember two things: a) you have the same level of motivation as these companies’ founder’s have–starting your own business takes a lot of it; and b) a lot of these large companies have had small beginnings just like yours. They did not have any of the funding, resources, creative talent or products that they do now. All they had was some creative ideas and a lot of motivation.

Maybe wanting your business to grow this large overnight may be a little unrealistic, but wanting your business to grow to be this large over time is not unrealistic at all. In fact, all it requires you to do is something that most other small business owners don’t do: trying to grow that big.

What stops you from growing this large is one thing: you. If you don’t believe you can, than that is one hurdle your business cannot clear. The only real barrier we have that prevents us from success is ourselves. If we don’t believe that we can accomplish something, then there is no way it is going to happen.

Conversely, if you strongly believe you can accomplish something, and you are motivated to make it happen, there is no obstacle large enough that can stop you from success.

This is the essence of what I like to call: aiming high–the more ambitious your goals are and the more motivated you are to achieve them, the greater your chances of success will be.

Aiming high can be difficult to do for a lot of reasons:

• High aiming goals can seem unrealistic to most people (normally the less ambitious)
• Aiming high requires a lot of constant motivation
• Aiming high means you may have to face failure many times before you reach success
• Aiming high for entrepreneurs means that you must invest a lot of your time and money now and receive an uncertain return at a later, unknown time

But this sounds an awful lot like the essence of entrepreneurship, doesn’t it? Entrepreneurial goals seem unrealistic to many people, running your own business needs constant motivation, entrepreneurs face failure many times before they face success and it can take a long time for a new business to become profitable.

What does this tell me? That aiming high shares the very same spirit that is entrepreneurship. Aiming high requires all of these same obstacles to be overcome, except now it needs to be taken to the next level. This practice of aiming high is ingrained into every entrepreneur, we just have to learn to channel this practice to take it one step further.

Aiming high isn’t just about thinking that you can grow your business as large as you want it to, its about being motivated enough to do it. If you are motivated enough to accomplish a goal of yours, you will, some way, find a way to make it happen.

An extremely motivated person will go very, very far before giving up and it is my belief that a high-aiming person running a business will begin to experience some success, or encounter significant strides towards their goal way before they are ready to give up. And once you see that your goals are moving closer, why give up then?

So how to you get your business to grow to be the size of Google or accomplish any business or personal goal for that matter? Just aim for it, work for it and don’t give up. As long as you can maintain that same level of entrepreneurial motivation, you’ll find a way to get there.