The best ones fit the conversation you're about to have. Seneca's "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable" works at a planning kickoff, and Oliver Wendell Holmes's line about the direction you're moving fits a midyear check-in when the team is behind.
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Goal Setting Quotes for Leaders and Their Teams
These goal setting quotes are for leaders who set goals with their people, whether that's next year's targets for the whole team or one development goal for a new supervisor.
A good quote gives your people a picture of the point you're making, and a picture tends to stay with them longer than a spreadsheet of targets.
A lot of goals get set with real energy at the start of the year and fade by spring. Use one of these quotes to open a planning session or a one-on-one, and let your own example connect it to the goal your team is working toward right now.
The quotes about goal setting below are grouped by the moments leaders run into most, from the planning kickoff to the midyear check-in. Click Copy quote on any card to paste the quote and the name into a slide or an email.
Jump To: Annual Planning | Your People | Stretch Goals | Focus | Midyear Check-In | Using a Quote | FAQ
Goal Setting Quotes for Annual Planning
Annual planning goes better when the team agrees on where it's headed before anyone starts negotiating the numbers. These quotes give the kickoff a focus, in moments like these:
- Next year's targets are going up on the whiteboard for the first time.
- Your own manager hands down a number and you need to turn it into team goals.
- Last year's plan was forgotten by March.
- The team has more ideas for next year than it has people to work on them.
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"If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
Seneca
Roman philosopher and statesman
"Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now."
Alan Lakein
Author of How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to."
Lewis Carroll
The Cheshire Cat, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
"People with goals succeed because they know where they're going."
Attributed to Earl Nightingale
Radio broadcaster and author
"If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else."
Attributed to Yogi Berra
Hall of Fame baseball catcher
Seneca's line fits the kickoff, because it makes the case for agreeing on the destination before anyone debates the route. Lakein's quote works when last year's plan was forgotten early, since it treats planning as work you do this week.
Quotes About Setting Goals With Your People
A goal someone helps write is one they're more likely to work toward, and a one-on-one is usually where that happens most effectively. These quotes help you start the conversation about what the person wants to build. A few places they work include:
- A new supervisor is writing a first development plan.
- A strong performer asks what it would take to get promoted.
- Someone's annual goals were copied from last year's review.
- A team member has a goal outside the current job, like finishing a degree.
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"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry David Thoreau
Author of Walden
"Becoming is better than being."
Carol Dweck
Stanford psychologist and author of Mindset
"What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals."
Attributed to Zig Ziglar
Author and motivational speaker
"Your goals are the road maps that guide you and show you what is possible for your life."
Attributed to Les Brown
Motivational speaker and author
"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them become what they are capable of becoming."
Attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German writer
Dweck's line fits the conversation with the new supervisor, because it puts the focus on who they're becoming in the role. For the strong performer asking about promotion, Thoreau's quote opens the question of what they imagine, and the free Goal Setting for Success course walks through an 8-step framework and the one-page Master Action Plan for turning that into steps.
Quotes on Goal Setting for Stretch Goals
A stretch goal asks the team to aim past what they know they can do, and the way you introduce it decides whether it feels like a challenge or a setup. These quotes help with the introduction, in moments like these:
- Next year's target is 20 percent above this year's.
- A team that hit every goal last year is getting comfortable.
- You're asking for something nobody on the team has tried, like opening a new market.
- Someone holds back on a goal because they're afraid of missing it.
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"Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
Robert Browning
Poet
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood."
Attributed to Daniel Burnham
Architect and city planner
"Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
Attributed to Les Brown
Motivational speaker and author
"A true BHAG is clear and compelling and serves as a unifying focal point of effort."
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras
Authors of Built to Last
"You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take."
Wayne Gretzky
Hall of Fame hockey player
Browning's line fits the 20 percent target, because it tells the team that falling a little short of a big goal still counts toward progress. Gretzky's quote works for the person holding back, since it puts the cost on the shot they don't take.
Quotes About Focusing on Goals When Priorities Pile Up
Many teams have more goals than they can reasonably focus on all at once, and the ones that matter end up getting the same attention as the ones that don't. These quotes help you narrow the list. These are examples of scenarios that fit this issue:
- The team is tracking eleven goals and moving on none of them.
- A new request arrives that doesn't fit any current goal.
- Your best people are spread across four projects.
- Quarterly priorities need to come down to a short list.
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"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are."
Steve Jobs
Cofounder of Apple
"Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus."
Gary Keller
Coauthor of The ONE Thing
"What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
34th President of the United States
"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
Attributed to Alexander Graham Bell
Inventor of the telephone
"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."
Attributed to Bruce Lee
Martial artist and actor
Jobs's line fits the meeting where the list gets cut, because it treats saying no as part of the planning process. Eisenhower's quote works when a new request arrives, since it gives the team a quick way to ask whether it's urgent or important.
Meeting Goals Quotes for the Midyear Check-In
Halfway through the year, most teams are ahead on some goals and behind on others, and the check-in is where you decide if any adjustments are needed. These quotes help you keep that conversation on the next six months, in moments like these:
- The team is 30 percent behind on its main target with six months to go.
- A goal set in January no longer fits after a change in the business.
- One person has hit every goal early and needs a new one.
- A new hire's development goal hasn't been touched since their first month.
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"The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving."
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Physician and author
"Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success."
David J. Schwartz
Author of The Magic of Thinking Big
"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps."
Attributed to Confucius
Chinese philosopher
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
Theodore Roosevelt
26th President of the United States
"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
Attributed to Henry Ford
Founder of Ford Motor Company
Holmes's line fits the team that's behind, because it puts the focus on which way the numbers are moving now. For the person who hit every goal early, David Schwartz's line from The Magic of Thinking Big is a good way to open the conversation about a bigger goal.
If the team is stuck in the middle of a long-term goal, the Goal Setting for Success course has a section on obstacles and the long middle stretch where progress slows.
How to Use a Quote with Your Team
A goal setting quote does its best work at the start of a planning conversation, when the team can still shape the goal.
ELENA'S PLANNING SESSION
Elena manages a seven-person loan processing team. The bank set a goal to bring average processing time down from 21 days to 15. She opened her team's planning session with Seneca's line about knowing which port you're sailing to, put the 15-day target on the whiteboard and asked one question: where does a loan sit the longest?
The team named two spots, waiting on appraisals at about five days and chasing missing documents at about four. They set two goals around them: a document checklist sent to every borrower on the first day, and a follow-up call to the appraiser on day three.
Three months later the average was 17 days. Elena shared the number with the team, and they picked the next bottleneck to work on.
Elena turned one large number into two goals her team could act on, and she came back with progress they could see. A goal the team helped shape is one they're more likely to keep working on after the meeting ends.
For more quotes sorted by topic, see the leadership quotes for managers, and for picking a quote that fits your message, see Famous Leadership Quotes.
More for Leaders
For the full process of setting and finishing a goal, the free Goal Setting for Success course includes a 93-page eBook, templates and worked examples. If you only need the one-page planning tool from the course, start with the Master Action Plan.
To set goals together as a team, try the team goal setting activities, and for your own development as a leader, the Growth Roadmap turns your goals into a strategic plan you can track.
Goal Setting Quotes FAQ
The questions below address what leaders most commonly ask about goal setting quotes.
Click on the (+) sign below to expand each question. Click the (-) sign to collapse it again.
What are the best goal setting quotes for work?
What are some famous quotes about goals?
Robert Browning wrote "a man's reach should exceed his grasp" in 1855, and Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden about advancing "confidently in the direction of his dreams." Wayne Gretzky's "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take" first appeared in The Hockey News in 1983.
How do I set goals with my team?
Start with the result you need, then ask the team where the work gets stuck and set goals around those spots. The team goal setting activities on this site give you exercises to run in a meeting.
How do I help someone set a personal development goal?
Ask what they want to be doing a year from now, then break that into steps they can start this month. The free Goal Setting for Success course walks through an 8-step framework and a one-page Master Action Plan you can use together.
What does "Attributed to" mean on these quotes?
It means the quote is widely credited to that person, but there's no dated source behind it, like a book or an interview. Every quote without it traces back to a source you can cite.
Can I use these quotes in my training materials?
Yes. Click Copy quote on any card, and the quote and the name go to your clipboard together, ready to paste into a slide or a handout. Keep the name with the quote when you use it.
More Leadership Quotes
Richard Gorham has led teams in financial services for more than 30 years, from retail branches and operations to investments and insurance, and he still leads a team today.
He founded Leadership-Tools.com in 2002 to give managers free, practical tools like the ones he used in his various leadership roles. Every tool here has been used in a real workplace and comes with a filled-in example you can follow.
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