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By Alan Fine
Business, like golf, is a mental exercise that tests your character and causes you to feel both joy and pain. And the dilemmas you face in golf parallel the challenges you encounter in business every day.
For example, in golf, why do some people freeze when they have to play over water? What drives someone to make a mess of a relatively simple shot at a crucial stage in a match? Why can a person hit the ball well on a practice round but never play as well in competition as we know he or she can? As we venture into business, the questions may change, but the themes are the same. People freeze when they confront a challenge that daunts them; they mess up a relatively simple project at the crucial stage of development; they know their presentation by heart, but they stumble when it's time to present to that big client.
Fortunately, you can apply the lessons you learn on the golf course to the business world for enhanced productivity and increased profits. Below are a few of the golf lessons that can guide you to business success.
Clarify Your Goals
Why do you play golf? To win? To have fun? To make business contacts? For social reasons? For the challenge? Most people play the game with some sort of goal in mind. Likewise, you need to approach your business endeavors with a goal as well. To make your goals useful, you need to make them SMART - that is, Specific, Meaningful, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-phased.
Specific: Goals need to be specific so that we can easily identify what they are and where they will lead us. Simply saying, "I want to be a better golfer," or "I want to increase sales," is so vague that no matter what you do, you'll never feel as if you're doing well enough.
Meaningful: As you get specific with your goals, make them meaningful for your unique situation. When your goals are meaningful, you'll want to take action and achieve them. You'll have a burning desire to push forward, despite any challenges you may encounter.
Achievable: Next, make the goal achievable so it's not boring or threatening. After all, if you think the goal is too difficult for your skill level, it will intimidate you and cause worry, anxiety, and fear.
Relevant: When a goal is not meaningful to you, then it becomes hard to muster the energy necessary to go after it. Goals imposed by other people, or those that you adopt because you have seen other people be successful with them, usually don't have enough relevance to excite you.
Time-phased: When do you want to achieve your goals by? The time-phase you set is an important factor in determining how achievable and relevant the goal is to you.
Using this SMART approach, a well-stated goal would be: "I want to be able to hit 9 out of 10 golf shots with a full-body turn by the end of the month. I can do 6 at the moment, and I practice 3 times a week," or "I want a 50% sales increase from this quarter to the next. I will make 5 additional sales calls per week. Last quarter I made 3 additional sales calls per week and increased sales by 40%."
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