You have your goals all set. Now what are your objectives?

What do you mean "What are my objectives? My goals are my objectives, aren't they?"

It is true that the words goals and objectives can be used interchangeably.
However, I have found out that many of the small business owners and entrepreneurs that
I work with are suffering from "Goal making burnout."

You have read the professionals like Brian Tracy, Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield
and chosen all of your main goals. You may have even written your chief goal in
the six step method that Napoleon Hill recommends in his seminal work "Think and Grow Rich."

That is great. You should have main goals and some smaller ones. It is in the scheduling
of day to day tasks in your Health and Fitness Business that makes this process of
goal achieving messy and laborious.

Let us use the example of a registered massage therapist. YOur main goal is to have
the most successful massage therapy clinic in Windsor Ontario (or whatever locale you
find yourself in)

Your smaller goals may include finishing your schooling and opening up your own clinic.
The problem arises when you identify your day to day tasks as goals.

Let us assume that you have finished your schooling and are looking at opening your clinic.
The steps may include getting a business loan, finding a building to lease, finding other
therapists to work with, speaking to family,contractors about leasehold upgrades,
listing your business on the windsor Health and fitness directory purchasing materials,
and the list goes on.

Many of these tasks rely on timing and the availability of others. If you set today's goal
(remember the s.m.a.r.t. acronym -goals should be timed) as "Securing a business
loan or finding" a "contractor" and then fail to secure those items you will have it set in your
mind that you have failed in your goal. Once you accept failure in the smaller goals
it becomes easier to accept failure in your bigger goals.

If you set these things as objectives - which are more relaxed in the timing aspect - you have separated
them mentally from your goals. YOu can keep plugging away at your objectives which will bring you to your goals.

You may not have found a business loan or a contractor on that specific day but you did find
a great deal on a massage table and found another therapist to work in your clinic. So instead of failing
to meet your goals you are reaching your objectives.