Goal setting is the single most important life skill in every successful person’s career.
Over 97% of people never learn how to do it properly.
The only way to define the real goal is: “A dream with a deadline.”
In his book “How to Get Everything You Want Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible”, Brian Tracy claims that “Less than 3% of adults have clear written goals with plans on how to achieve them.”
The keyword here is written.
Success is no accident. Those who become very successful, wealthy or win gold medals at major sporting events have one thing in common – they belong to the 3% club. They have written goals.
They anticipate and create their future by writing their life goals.
Most entrepreneurs are often busy people – busy fire fighting most of the time. If not servicing customers then they are busy trying to win new business or watching competition or creating new products or offerings.
They resist taking an hour each month write-down their goals.
A written goal has 10x the achievement possibility than a goal that just lingers in your mind.
You can find hundreds of resources on the goal-setting and goal-achievement. Here is my highest recommendation:
- Website with free resources: Setting Goals 101
- Book: Double Your Income Doing What You Love
In his book “The Success Principles“, Jack Canfield recommends that you should have at least 101 goals.
Start today
Write 10 goals in each of the following 10 categories. You can start with a few milestone you would like to achieve in your lifetime. Write as many milestones as you can think of right now and complete the rest later.
The important thing is: be specific.
- Financial Milestones (pay off mortgage before 2015 save £50,000, own 10 properties, pay off credit card loans)
- Physical Change Milestones (size 32 waist, 17% fat)
- Places to Visit Milestones (Coral Reef in Australia, Oktoberfest in Germany, trek in South America)
- Relationship Milestones (get married, have dinner with family twice a week, take son to swimming every Saturday)
- Content to Consume Milestones (Books to read or Films to watch)
- Skill Milestones (skiing expert on a slope, C++ programming, Chinese cooking)
- New things to Learn Milestones (painting, French)
- New Creation Milestones (write a book, self build family home, paint a portrait)
- Risk Milestones (travel London to Kathmandu via road, climb Mount Kilimanjaro)
- Ownership Milestones (holiday home in South of France, Mercedes Benz SLK-Class 350, Diamond necklace, Patek Philippe watch)
- Professional Milestones (become department head, start a company, sign up 100 new clients)
- Certificate Milestones (qualify as engineer, get MBA, apply for MENSA)
Now it is up to you. Don’t just think … get writing now.
Remember: what gets written gets done.
You can comment here if you like. Tell the world what you would like to accompalish in your lifetime.
Do it now while it’s still fresh on your mind because it will just take 5 minutes out of your day, but what you discover will last you a lifetime and help leave your legacy.
A very good article. I have been aware of goal setting from the first hand count told to me by a good friend. 6 years ago he was earning 20,000 a year and almost broke. He decided to do some thing. So he wrote a few goals, and then he wrote down plan how he will achieve them.
Then he took action.
Any one else would have laughed at those goals at the time as they appeared to be too lofty for the situation he was in.
The way he looks at this now is: those goals gave him something to focus on. At the time he would have been happier to acheive a fraction of those goals. But 6 years on, he has achieved every one of those goals.
They included: private education for his children (cost 15,000 per child per year), and driving a top of the range Merc (cost 50,000 pounds).
6 years ago he was earning around 20 thousand a year and driving an old tattered car. Achieving those goals would have been unthinkable, short of winning a lottery.
It may not be entirely due to just writing down the goals but that was a starting point. he wrote those goals, believed in them and took massive action.
David