The Awesome Power of Goal Setting—Ten Tips for Triumph

"If you only work to other people's expectations, you can only be as good as they are," says Rob Leatham, a six-time national and three times world, shooting champion, in his forward to Practical Shooting. My husband and I are both target shooters; he shoots competitively. I am often struck by the messages in "how to shoot" books and their applicability to managing people and work. "Just to keep the level you're at, you've got to keep breaking ground; you've got to push. If you just try to hold your ground, you're going to slip," he goes on to conclude.

In my life, how I push is to set goals. I set personal and professional goals with timelines. Early in my career, I listened to a Brian Tracy tape series in which he recommended writing down a couple of goals and then tossing the paper in a drawer. I did, and when I moved some years later, I found I had achieved every goal I had written down. Not just for the new year but for every day of the year, read about The Awesome Power of Goal Setting—Ten Tips for Triumph. Then see The Darker Side of Goal Setting: Why Goal Setting Fails ... .