Goal setting
Take Massive Action And Transform Your Life
You Really Can Become Anything You Want To Be
Do you remember when you were younger, and everyone was telling you that you could be anything you wanted to be? It’s strange because many of those people will have turned out to be hypocrites. Tell them now that you want to be the next Bill Gates and they’ll probably tell you to stop daydreaming and get a job. Nice.
But the fact is that they were right the first time. It actually is possible to be anything you want to be and the amazing thing is that it’s easier today than it ever has been. Let’s take a look at why that is…
How To Be Whatever You Want To Be… Tomorrow
Actually, being whatever you want to be is incredibly easy. Want to be a writer? Then start writing tonight. Congratulations! You are now a writer! Want to be a swimmer? Then start swimming. Congratulations! You are now a swimmer!
Once you realize this, things get better right away. You don’t have to make your day job ‘who you are’ because you can make your hobby ‘who you are’ – or your side project. It doesn’t matter if you hate your work and it’s not satisfying as long as you’re doing something else that gives you hope and purpose.
Making It Big
And if you try hard enough, then eventually you will be able to go professional with what you do. The reason is that if you write enough, you will eventually learn how to get good at it and how to find clients. Ever heard of the ‘10,000 hour rule’?
It means that you can put 10,000 hours into anything and become a master of it that way. Do the thing you love every night then and you will eventually be great at it.
What if the opportunity to make it big never comes? Well in that case you can make the opportunity.
And who cares even if it’s successful? Now you’re a writer or a singer and lots of people have seen your work. So honestly… you really can be anything you want to be!
Here’s How You Do Something Amazing And Change The World
Ever wanted to change the world? Come on, be honest…
Most of us on some level would probably like it if we could make a big impact on the world or do something amazing at least but we’re too afraid too because we don’t think that it’s something we can possible accomplish.
But what you maybe don’t realize is that ‘the others’ are people who were once in the exact same position as you but who had the nerve to try anyway. Everyday people like you and me change the world all the time and believe it or not, there’s actually a formula for doing it!
Define Your Goal And Shout About It
The first step to changing the world is to define what it is you want to achieve and then own it. Most of us will never change the world because we don’t think that we’re capable of it and so we keep it to ourselves.
But as soon as you start acknowledging what you really want to achieve and you start going for it, then you will be able to define your plan of action and you will get attention from people who will be moved by your passion, ambition and dedication.
Big ideas will often get attention and a following much quicker than small ones. And that’s how you move on to the next stage.
Find Powerful Allies
This is the part that most people don’t consider. Sure, you might lack the funding or the authority to change the world, but if you have a good enough idea… then you can find someone who does have the power to.
This is what Palmer Luckey did when he decided he wanted to make virtual reality a reality (ironic though that sounds). First he admitted to himself that that’s what he wanted.
Then he shouted about it on Kickstarter and got a huge backing and then he took the idea to powerful people like John Carmack and Mark Zuckerberg. They gave him the funding, the resources and the knowhow and now the Oculus Rift is poised to genuinely change the world.
He started in his basement and he got to where he is in just a few years… and you can do the exact same thing!
The 80/20 Principle – Knowing Where To Put Your Effort In
Going big is often the best way to ensure your success – create enough output, take enough chances and eventually you’ll be sure to have a hit or ten under your belt which for many of us will be more than enough.
But while working hard enough is often the secret to almost guaranteed success, you mustn’t also Underestimate The Power Of Working Smart.
What It Means To Work Smart
What it means to work smart is basically to be strategic in the way that you approach any problem or any ambition. In turn, this means approaching your aims in such a way that you will be able to cut corners and accomplish the most with the minimal effort.
Putting in 10,000 hours is a great way to become an expert – but the quality of those 10,000 hours also makes a big difference.
The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule, also sometimes know as the ‘Pareto Principle’, basically states that whatever it is that you do, 20% of your effort will yield 80% of your success.
So if you sell 100 products, chances are that 20 of them (or even fewer) will make up the vast majority of your cash.
The moral of this story is that if you ‘throw enough paint at the wall’ some is bound to stick.
In the case of a business providing a service, it will often be that the company makes the vast majority of its money from just a few clients while the others serve as nothing but a distraction really. In other cases, it might be that a small number of clients cause the vast majority of the problems.
In such a case, it would be wise for that business to lose the 20% causing the 80% of the problem and even to get rid of some of those clients that aren’t bringing much to the table.
Instead, focus purely on the ones that are generating the most income and actually life will be easier and you’ll earn much more. Then you can put in huge effort and see huge rewards for both them and you!
The Art Of Failing Fast
If you want to achieve a lot in life, sometimes the secret is to stop trying so hard and to put out lower quality work.
Wait… what?
That’s not what they told you at school right? And it probably goes against pretty much everything you’ve been brought up to believe as well. But in fact it is very often the case when it comes to really being successful so let’s take a look at why.
What It Means To Fail Fast
What I’m talking about here is ‘failing fast’. In business, this means creating your ‘minimal viable product’ or your ‘MVP’ and releasing that as quickly as possible. So a company will create a product that is really sub-par in many ways and that certainly could be better and then they’ll release ten more.
In the same time another company that doesn’t take the fail fast approach might only release a single product that’s much better quality.
Well it comes down to the fact that these ‘minimal viable products’ require smaller investment and allow you to get something out the door faster. That means that you can beat the competition to market and it means that you don’t lose out on such a big investment as you otherwise might do. More importantly, it means you can quickly release something else again next week as well.
As a result you’ll be able to rapidly test the market and get an idea for whether or not people want to buy your product. If you get lots of interest and lots of sales then you know that it’s worth your while to invest even more time and even more effort into that particular version because there’s a market there to buy it. If you don’t get any interest? You move on, having taking the minimal financial hit.
Meanwhile, the company that invested all their time, effort and money on creating one fantastic product might risk that product failing and costing them huge amounts, possibly ending the business.
Applying It To Life
The ‘fail fast’ technique can also be applied to other areas of your life. Basically this means releasing a ‘beta’ version into the public and you can do this in all kinds of situations.
Some people will look the other way, but when someone finally smiles back, then you can go over and invest the time.
See what other areas you can apply the fail fast approach to!
How Playing The Numbers Game Can Help You To Succeed At Everything
Want to increase your likelihood at success? Then simply try more often.
In gambling this isn’t a good idea because it means you’ll lose a hundred times before you win and go broke. But in life things are different. In life, you can ‘fail’ thousands of times and bounce back stronger than you were before… But you only need one win. If you ‘play the numbers’ then, you can effectively rig yourself to succeed no matter what you do.
In Dating
I have a friend who applies this logic to dating. He’s a funny guy and every time we go on a night out, he will set off to approach lots of women.
If you’ve done the math, then 9/10 fails means that on a typical number he’ll succeed with one or two women… which means he’s basically getting more action than all of us put together. Now that’s success!
In Making Money
You can also apply this to making money, as I once did.
When Kindle first came out, there was something of a ‘gold rush’ as people clamored to upload e-books to Amazon. I started out by uploading a book or two and it got a couple of downloads a month – I was happy, if underwhelmed.
Can you guess what I did? For one year I uploaded an e-book or two every single day and by the end I had hundreds of e-books in the store. All of them got at least two downloads a day and two of them went massive… the result? A huge ‘passive income’ that would pay my wages travelling for the whole subsequent year.
The moral of the story? You make your own luck. Play the game enough and you will win and make it big!
3 Powerful And Surprising Goal Setting Tips You Missed
I once heard a famous motivational and sales speaker tell the story of someone who set some goals.
It seems he wrote down all of his great big goals like getting a super high paying job, traveling the world, starting a non-profit foundation and so forth, folded up the paper and put it in a drawer.
Then he forgot all about those goals and went about his life.
Fast forward three years, and he’s moving into his new house. Packing up that drawer, he finds the goal list he wrote out, and realizes he has accomplished every single goal on that list, including buying a mansion.
Yeah. Right.
And then a leprechaun jumped out of the drawer and handed him a magic genie lamp, and he made three wishes and married the fairy princess.
As you might have guessed, I’m not buying that story. Are you?
But there are things you can do to help you achieve your goals and New Year’s resolutions – things I’ll bet NO ONE has told you about.
Things that can give you the life you want, if you embrace them.
Things that… well… might just set your goal getting abilities on fire.
Let’s get started:
Goal Setting Tip 1: What Kind Of PAIN Do You Want To Have?
Focusing on what you want usually isn’t going to work unless you also consider what kind of pain you want to have.
Everyone wants a rock hard body and a few million dollars in the bank. But are you willing to go through the pain it costs to get those things?
THAT is the question.
An art fan tells a great artist that she should would do ANYTHING to paint like he does.
To which the artist replies, “If that were so, then you would already be painting like me. I’ve painted every single day since I was seven years old. I painted when my friends were outside playing. In high school I painted when my friends were going to dances and playing sports. In college I painted instead of dating. I’ve taken art courses and studied art until I know more than most of my professors. I’ve traveled the world to sit at the feet of great painters and observe their process. I’ve given everything I have to be a great painter. And if you really wanted to be like me, you would have done the same.”
Ouch.
That artist paid a very big price for achieving his goal.
What pain are you willing to go through to achieve your goals?
What you willing to do?
What will you sacrifice?
What regiment, training, practice schedule and so forth will you commit to doing every day until you succeed?
When you decide this in advance, you multiply the odds of achieving your goal by ten-fold.
Goal Getting Tip 2: The Secret Ingredient
“I want to be a medical doctor.”
Okay, that’s your goal. But what do you do to achieve that goal? Writing it down and stuffing it into a drawer won’t make it happen.
You need systems in place to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
For a pianist, his goal is to give concerts to millions of people. But his system is to practice each day of his life.
For a coach, her goal is to win the championship. But the system is the practices she puts her players through each day.
For an entrepreneur, the goal is to build a profitable business and sell it. But the system is the sales and marketing process that brings in the customers, as well as the system for delivering the products or services.
Without systems in place to reach your goals, you won’t get there.
First, you choose your goal based on both what you want and what pain you are willing to endure to get that goal.
Then you choose the system you’re going to use to achieve that goal.
Goal Getting Tip 3: Goal Assassination
You’ve made your goals and now you’ve got a list – the kind of list a kid might send to Santa Clause – so what’s the delay? Why aren’t you achieving your goals?
Imagine you’re growing roses. On one rose bush, there are a hundred rosebuds. But on the other rose bush, you snip off every single bud except for one.
Which rose flower will be the biggest? The one by itself, of course. And that’s because it gets all of the energy and food the plant can provide, instead of having to share it with a hundred other flowers.
Your goals are all competing for your time and energy.
That’s why you’ve got to ruthlessly eliminate your lesser goals, at least until you achieve your biggest goal.
The exception: If a secondary goal directly supports your primary goal, then it can be best to pursue both at once.
For example, you want to build a business. It’s going to be a lot easier to make good decisions and work hard if you get enough exercise and eat right.
Exercise and proper eating support your goal of building a business, so don’t wait until the business is built to get in shape. Start exercising and eating healthy right away, so you have what it takes to build that business and live the good life.
And once you achieve your first big goal, you just might find you’re addicted to the process.
Guaranteed, the second goal will be easier than the first, because now you’ll know what it takes.
The New Year is upon us. 12 months from now, you can either look back and wish you had achieved that big goal, or look back and be thrilled that you did.
The choice is yours.
Breaking Goal Setting Down To Maximize Success
How do you move a mountain? One shovelful at a time. It’s a cute saying, but how many of us grab the shovel and start frantically banging away at the mountain, trying to whittle it down through sheer brute force?
That’s why so many ideas to help change your life fail—the frustration gives us an out, a way to rid ourselves of something so vast. It’s an open invitation for defeatism and defeatist thinking.
So how do you move a mountain? You make it into a series of tasks. You have the end goal; now you have to make your timeline. The catch is – you need to make it backward. You need to start with the year-long goal first and then slice it into 12 parts (one for each month).
Then slice each of those into four sections (one for each week) and then each of those into seven (one for each day). See the pattern?
Let’s look at this in a little more detail:
Figure Out Your Big Year-Long Goals
Although it might not be the whole mountain that you’re looking at, your yearly goal should be BIG. At least big enough to be a little scary.
There is wisdom in the expression that “it’s only the frightening things that keep us interested.”
Most of our big goals run into a few general categories.
- Career. Are you looking for a new job or a promotion? Do you want to leave a low-paying job and get something with a better future or more in line with what you like to do? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do that would boost your career significantly (like gaining certification or additional training) but that you’ve never taken the time to do? Now might be the time.
- Heath and fitness. Many people make goals to get “healthy.” The problem with that this kind of goal is not measurable. “Healthy” can mean many things to different people. Does “healthy” mean losing weight? Not necessarily. It could be exercising more. It could be eating better and less junk food. It could mean making sure you get enough sleep at night. Be specific in your goal. Ask yourself how it can be measured and quantified.
- Fun. This goal is also rather vague. What do you consider to be “fun?” For some, a day at the beach would be fun, for others, it would boring. Often “fun” is used as a placeholder for some activity that involves being alone or alone with a significant other. Think about times in the past that you considered ‘fun.’ What were the elements in common? Create a goal then that incorporates those elements. If fun is your goal, be specific about what fun means to you.
- Relationships. This goal often arises in several parts. Sometimes we want to have a relationship, whether friendship or romantic, that we don’t already have. Or it might be we want to strengthen an existing relationship. Ask yourself where in your relationships you need the most help. Remember that you might need to enlist the cooperation of the person you’re having the relationship with to succeed here. Resolving to spend more time with a person only works if they’re likewise interested in spending more time with you.
- Giving. Donating to your favorite charity is the most obvious goal in this category, but it might be that you’d like to take your commitment to the cause a little deeper this year. Consider giving your time and talent to your community. But don’t forget that giving time to your family also counts here. Often we become so caught up in work and the pressure to earn money and support the family, that we sacrifice the time we could be spending with them. Re-evaluate where you give your time, and then consciously choose where you want to spend it.
Instead of making a New Year’s resolution, sit down for an hour or so and daydream about this time next year. What do you want this year to look like at the end of it? Who do you want to be in this year? Be specific. And don’t worry about “how.” That part comes later. Just figure out the “what” for now.
Decide what you can reasonably do in a month. If you’re taking a rock here and there from the mountain, it will never look any different. You need to concentrate on one small part at a time. Go back to that year-long goal and pick something that you can realistically do in a month.
Take the mountain out in monthly chunks. If your overall goal is to change your career, one month might involve learning a new skill set, say a programming language. The next month might be getting real-world experience by designing and building a website for a charity for free, just as a demonstration project.
Break That Down Into Weekly Goals
This time, the re-occurring meeting with yourself is once each week. It can be a shorter meeting, about 15 – 20 minutes to plan out some steps you can take to get closer to your goal in the next seven days.
Write these down. For example, using the idea of working toward a change in careers, week one might be researching the best programming languages to study and which ones are in highest demand. Week two might be working through the first half of the book or video course you have on learning the language, while week three would be finishing the book and making some test programs, and so on.
Maybe you won’t have a finished web page or object-oriented database interface by the end of the week, but you’re making progress to get you there.
Now you’re ready to look at the wheelbarrow full of rocks. In the morning, jot down your to-do list for the goal you have in mind. Following the previous example, you might be doing the next three lessons in the language tutorial, finding a server to create pages on, or learning how to create that database.
This type of planning is flexible and powerful. Instead of saying, “I am moving that mountain,” all you’re saying is “I have a wheelbarrow full of rocks to put over there.” You still have the scary, impressive goal to aim for, but you’ve made it manageable. It’s now broken into bite-sized chunks that you can handle on a day to day basis.
Take control. No one will care about your goals like you will. The timeline here is yours, so take ownership of it. Our calendars control too many of us, instead of us being in control of our calendars.
One final note: Do you know someone that cannot make a move without checking their calendar? Are you one of them? If so, you might be begrudging the time set aside for contemplation each week or each month to get caught up on the progress. Don’t. It’s your schedule, and the end goal is worth the time. If that weren’t the case, you wouldn’t have gotten this far.
You have work/school/kids to work around your schedule. That’s understandable. Few of us do not have a full dance card. But isn’t achieving this beautiful far-flung dream worth skipping an hour of TV each week? What if you sacrificed that time you’d spend playing that game on your phone, or checking Facebook?
This fact is especially important for children. Trying to achieve a balance between work and family, and still finding time for some self-investment is a delicate thing. Remember that word – this is an investment. You are investing time and energy and even money into your future. Keep in mind; the payout will benefit you as well as your family.
While this tool is a form of time management, it’s a different type. It’s counting down, making the goal smaller and smaller instead of planning. You’re planning backward – to go forward. Stay the course, and those yearly goals won’t know what hit them!
The Most Important Goal To Set To Achieve Success
If you want to be successful in life, whether that be in business, relationships or anything else, I’m sure that you know about the importance of setting goals to help you achieve the results you desire.
But can I ask you a question?
Do you know what the most important kind of goal is for your life?
We all have goals that we set and we know the importance of goal setting and it’s one of those topics that gets beaten to death and a lot of us don’t want to hear about goal setting anymore.
You do, I do, we all do goal setting at one level or another. Maybe you just do it mentally and you think about them from time to time.
Other people like me, I’m very, very strict about my goals. I’m always writing them down and refining them.
But there are different kinds, and this is a very, very critical aspect.
There is a type of goal where you define what you want to do, there is a type of goal where you define what you want to have and there’s also a kind of goal where you define who you want to be.
The kind of person you want to be.
It’s the third one, the goals you set on the type of person you want to be, that are the most pivotal, most important and most influential in your life.
Your material wants or even bigger wants than that, the things you would like to acquire, the things you would like to eventually achieve in your life, some you’ll hit and some you’ll won’t.
Some will take longer than planned, some you’ll maybe get shorter than you planned. They’re going to be all over the map.
As an example, you may be at a certain financial position right now. Let’s say you’re earning $50,000 a year and you want to take that to $100,000.
There are a number of different ways you could do that. You could set a goal to do that within the next year, the next six months or the next three years and you go after it.
You may or may not hit the goal, and you may or may not try as hard as you can, although the whole point of goal setting is you do try and you go for it.
But this is a measurable, specific thing that you’re shooting for and you may or may not get there.
There’s all kinds of circumstances, things that could come up that could prevent it from happening.
Sure, you can have a plan that says I want to get from 50k to 100k and I’m going to do this, this, this and this over the next X amount of months or years and you do those things and that plan may or may not work.
But what if you started asking yourself or writing a goal down to say, here’s who I want to be.
I want to be a positive and uplifting person. I want to be loving towards my family. Every time I see my family I want them to feel excited in my presence. I want them to feel uplifted.
I want them to feel inspired. When I meet new people I want them to feel like they just met somebody really interesting, and they want to get to know me at a deeper level.
I want to set a goal to be the kind of person that follows through on every commitment I make to myself.
I’m going to achieve XYZ by a certain date, such as I’m going to lose 20 pounds by March 30th is very results driven. It’s very achievement driven, and the timeline for that may change.
You don’t know how quickly you can lose that weight and you want to be able to do it in a healthy way, so you may have to adjust that plan.
But who do you have to be to reach that weight?
You have to be the kind of person who commits to their goals, who does whatever it takes, who when they say they’re going to do something they do it and follow through and hold themselves accountable.
So here’s my challenge to you, or even call it a suggestion or tip.
Begin journaling on a daily basis, writing down where you’re at but more importantly where you want to go, goals.
If you want to go to a conference next year to learn something new, write that down. That’s a great goal to have. You need to know how much money it’s going to take you to get there and all that.
But I also want you to start thinking about two or three or even four who do I want to be type of goals.
What I found is when I started doing this, I started writing things down like I want to be an inspiring person to be around for my family.
I want my family to feel loved and excited when I’m around. I want my family to run and give me a huge hug when I walk in the door after being gone for a long time. That’s the kind of person I want to be.
When I write that down and remind myself this is who I want to be, all those other goals I find come to me a little bit more naturally. They come to me easier.
It’s because I’m acting and behaving in a way that’s congruent with those goals.
If I say I want to be a committed, dedicated person who follows through on his commitments and then I set a really, really aggressive goal like doubling my income in what some may deem an unrealistic period of time, I’m way more likely to hit that goal if I’m the kind of person who sticks to his commitments and then goes above and beyond the call of duty and does whatever it takes in any situation to create whatever I envision.
So that’s the difference. That’s the key. You may not have done this before. I know it was a relatively new concept for me.
When I started doing that, it had such a deep impact on a daily basis.
It literally, in those moments of weakness where I wanted to break a commitment and go back into an old habit that would have prevented those cool goals from coming into my life, these being goals would remind me of the kind of person I need to be and I want to be and intend to do.
I want to live this way every single day, and so I write those goals down on a daily basis and it keeps me in check. It keeps me on track for where I want to go.
So do this. Have some fun with it. Think about the kind of person you want to be, write it down, explain it in as much detail and then do it daily and repeat it to yourself and start living this way.
All those material goals and wants are going to come to you.
How To Take Action Even When You’re Afraid!
Have you ever felt afraid? So afraid that you couldn’t even move?
Don’t worry if you have; you are not alone!
Fear is a normal emotion. Sometimes, it can be beneficial because it makes you aware of risks, keeps you alert, and improves mental focus. However, too much fear will have the opposite effect and can paralyse you.
However, don’t fret as even the most successful people experience this feeling. The key is to prevent it from dictating your actions. To be successful at anything in life you really must “feel the fear and do it anyway!”
The Many Shades Of Fear
Unfortunately, this human emotion isn’t all black and white but rather many shades of grey. Fear can take many forms, from mild anxiety to downright debilitating overthinking.
Fear is a natural reaction to many circumstances; indeed, it developed to save us from dangerous encounters.So, yes, under certain circumstances, it can protect you from danger and stop impulsive behaviors. But, because it’s closely tied into your gut instinct, it can also help you improve your decision making.
The problem is that fear can be triggered by tiny circumstances that get blown up out of all proportion in your mind. This triggers your “fight or flight” reflex but there isn’t really anything to fight or run from, but psychologically fear has begun to sink in and it a profound effect on the quality and direction of your life.
Let’s say you want to quit your 9-to-5 job and start a creative agency or work as a freelance web designer. You might be afraid that you’ll lose time and money if things don’t work out as you planned. What if you won’t have enough clients? Or what if you get sick and can’t work anymore?
The risks are real, so it’s normal to experience fear. However, you’ll never know what you’re missing if you don’t try.
Who knows? You might have a huge success and build a loyal customer base. Five years from now on, you could have enough money to buy the home of your dreams.
Do you want to live your life wondering What if?
How To Conquer Your Fear
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be able to get rid of fear completely. Instead, you should make it your ally and use it to fuel your dreams and goals.
Picture yourself reaching your goal, whatever it is. Imagine the worst-case scenario and then come up with a backup plan. Ask yourself: what are the facts? Am I making assumptions? What’s the best thing that can happen? Who can I call for help?
Use your fear as a source of guidance. Assess your inner fears and seek possible solutions.
Using our example above, you could start a web design side hustle in addition to your regular job. This way, if your business fails, you’ll still have an income. If it keeps growing, turn it into a full-time job. With this approach, you’ll get to do what you want and mitigate risks.
Instead of thinking you’ve “failed” and that’s it, it’s over, try to look on it as a learning experience. You now know what doesn’t work, so you are wiser than before.
Use fear to fuel your goals. Move from one “failure” to another; be glad that you know what doesn’t work so you can keep moving forward.
Used this way, fear can be a real force for good in your life and can really drive you on.
Being or feeling scared is natural. True courage comes from stepping up and carrying on regardless of being afraid and this grit is what separates the winners from the losers.
So, the next time you feel afraid, be glad about it and push forward and you will break through and grow as a person and you’ll be one step closer to where you want to be.