Recently we had the opportunity to attend The Blue Chip Awards Luncheon. A wonderful afternoon filled with successful small business people, great food and inspirational stories, the highlight was key speaker, Nikki Stone.

An Olympic gold medalist, Nikki overcame much adversity and physical challenges throughout her career and stressed the importance of setting career goals in her keynote speech. Stone discussed the significance of her goals as the direct result for her success. She explained how she would write down all her goals and keep them close to her – literally in her pocket at all times (on advice from none other than Muhammad Ali!). This helped her stay motivated when those moments of giving up rolled in.

So why is it so important to set career goals? For every individual it is different because we all have different destinations in which we wish to reach. No matter what our definition of success might be, we all strive for our own version of it. By both physically and mentally defining our goals we are mobilizing our energy towards one single aim. Having a clear and concise strategy and focus will allow us all to better be able to accomplish any objective.

This can and should be applied to our work goals as well. Having a defined set of actionable items makes reaching success easier. With goals and a strategy, one can create a series of steps to reach them. Be sure to consider this when working on your marketing and communication goals.

Who are you trying to reach? What’s your end goal? How can you quantify it and measure your success as you go?

“Success is how high you bounce after you hit rock bottom.” -Gen George Patton from Nikki Stone’s speech