SMART Goal-Setting, SWOT Analysis Matrix, and Elevator Speeches

This is a (brief) overview of what we covered at the first of two professional development workshops a friend (the brilliant Ann Marie Lonsdale) gave at my apartment, which people universally said was helpful.  We covered THREE items:

(1) Productive Goal-Setting -- what it is, and why to do it

(2) The SWOT Analysis Matrix, and how to use it

(3) The "pitch" or "elevator speech" or "artist identity thesis"

There were two documents that went along with the workshop -- if you'd like them, please email me at jennyconnelldavis@gmail.com (or leave a comment!)

PRODUCTIVE GOAL-SETTING

There are a number of reasons to set goals:

(1)  To help you clarify and identify them – to make sure the thing you think you want is actually what you want.

(2)  To help you actually think through what will be necessary to accomplish them

(3)  To give yourself a reasonable time frame in which to accomplish them (and to figure out why that frame is necessary.

(4)  To learn from your failure.

The SMART Goal-Setting sheet goes through the different elements that are true of productive goals – I won’t re-hash the sheet, just highlight that it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

A few key points:

(1)  A goal list is different than a to-do list (if you’re putting down “goals” that are really just part of a larger goal, you might want to re-think how you’re organizing your goals).

(2)  It helps to lay out several of your goals, WITH their time-frames, to identify whether it’s realistic to accomplish all of them and, if so, what you’ll need to do to make them reality.

(3)  A goal is something that you can accomplish, not that you’ll need to rely on other people and/or luck to bring to fruition.  If you find you have “goals” that are dependent on others, you might want to rethink that goal, or frame it so that it’s geared toward what you can do, not what others can do for you.

(4)  Failing to meet a goal may feel like it sucks, but every failure to meet a goal is also an opportunity to gather data – why didn’t you meet the goal?  How could you have organized your life, or the goal, to make it something you could accomplish?  What can you learn about yourself and your process, or your goals themselves, if you’re not achieving them within the timeframe you’ve set for yourself?

SWOT ANALYSIS MATRIX

The SWOT matrix is a way for you to begin to identify positives and negatives, both internal and external, that are at work in your career, and then figure out how to take control or ownership over them.  Strengths and weaknesses are internal, opportunities and threats are external.  See the attached handouts.

(1)  The first step is to identify what it is you’re trying to accomplish – personally or professionally, project-based or more broadly.

(2)  Then try to identify as many elements as you can that exist within each quadrant of the matrix.  Don’t judge, just observe and try to name the things that you think are either working for you or standing in your way.

(3)  There’s a big power in simply naming these things.  But the next step is to see how you can begin to SHIFT the things you’ve identified from one quadrant to another.  If you’ve identified something as a threat, in what way can you find an opportunity within that threat?  In what way is that thing something you can re-name as a weakness (something internal, and thus something over which you have control) something you had identified as a threat (external, and thus less controllable)?  How can you turn opportunities or weaknesses into strengths?  What would it TAKE to do that?

TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR WORK

This was a quick but really enlightening/inspiring exercise we did toward the end of the session.  The point, here, isn’t necessarily to come up with the pithy “elevator speech” that will get a billionaire to give you a million dollars – it’s to find a place of authority from which to speak about your own work, so that when the (inevitable) question comes “tell me about your work,” you can speak succinctly, confidently, and truthfully about what you do.

Step One:

Write down five (or seven, or thirteen) different words to describe your work, or that you hope describe your work.  Don’t think too hard, just write.  Try to be rigorous about sticking to words rather than whole phrases.

Step Two:

Study those words for a minute.  Now write between three and five sentences that begins with “I am a writer who…” or “I am a writer whose work…”  See what you get. 

Step Three:

Read it out loud.  See how it feels coming out of your mouth.  Ideally, read it alongside several other people doing the same exercise, and see how different or similar their statements are.  Appreciate the commonalities and differences.  Refine your statement as necessary.