process
Expert Goal Setting
Goal setting may appear to be a rather intuitive process that results in you reaching some sort of achievement. But you need to follow a few specific rules regarding your goal setting to make the process much more efficient, and ultimately effective in helping you reach a successful conclusion!
Set Yourself Up for Success From The Start
Everyone should have big goals as they are incredibly motivating and it is a chance for you to see the future in advance! The end goal, the big one, can be as big as you’d like, but make sure that’s not the only goal you set as it can appear to be overwhelming and this can cause you to start procrastinating and stop taking action, thus losing momentum.
Break your big goal down into smaller interim goals as they will appear to be much more achievable and will help to smooth the road to success. It can easily become too overwhelming to set one goal of “I will buy a bigger home next year” (although this can be an excellent end goal)!
Break that big goal down into smaller, more readily achievable goals such as; “Pay off all credit card debt”, “save 20% down payment”, and “raise credit score”. Achieving these smaller goals will keep you motivated and this really sets you up for success in your major end goal!
Set Realistic Goals
If buying a house next year just isn’t going to happen, don’t set yourself a goal that big, or you’ll only be setting yourself up for failure from the start and this may cause you to feel like a failure and disempower you, the exact opposite of what a good goal should be doing! Instead, try to set more realistic goals that you actually have the chance to achieve. It’s ok to dream big, but be realistic in how you are going to reach that big goal.
There are usually many smaller goals that make up large goals, and there’s nothing wrong with setting a pace for yourself so that you stay on track. This is definitely preferable to getting overwhelmed and ending up endlessly negatively analyzing your every move. Setting realistic goals will make sure that you achieve them!
The Power Of Visualization And Belief
The goals you set become so much more concrete in your mind when you can also visualize them and believe that you’ll reach them. The first step in effective visualization is to become completely engaged and to put all of your senses into the process. If your goal is a new, larger home, imagine how it feels to walk around in that house with ample room. Visualize yourself making a meal in the large kitchen. You’re surrounded by the sounds of a happy family, the smells of good food cooking and the feeling you have everything needed, organized and at your fingertips.
Utilizing the senses in this way when you visualize will help secure this goal within your subconscious mind, and effectively make it easier to take the actions you need to take to work towards your goals. Your actions will follow your thoughts, so make visualization a part of your daily routine!
Keeping Your Focus On The Journey
In life, in business, in everything, there comes a time when you need to start setting goals, and the journey to those goals must be started; remember the first step is always the hardest. Most people who are striving for success in their lives choose to focus on the goal instead of the journey towards that goal but in doing so, they truly miss out on the myriad lessons to be recognized along the way and are missing out on the joy that comes along with their growth.
When you begin a journey toward a goal, there is always a period of excitement, of renewal, of momentum and motivation. And when you accomplish the end goal, there is a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. The starting point and the ending point are to be celebrated, but so is the journey in between!
To ensure that YOU don’t miss out on the many lessons along the path from start to end, here is a helpful little technique for you to use:
Depending on the goal you have set, whether it be weight loss, business-related, better relationships…it really doesn’t matter…keep a journal of the process you are going through.
Keeping a written journal of some kind (this may be paper and pen, or online) can really help you identify thought and behavior patterns, positive and negative habits, and can help you discover things about your thinking and the actions you take. Some of these things will be obvious to you – no surprise there. But you may learn some things about yourself that will come as a complete surprise, and herein lies those valuable lessons.
By learning what works, what doesn’t work, how you tend to react to when things go well and when they do not, you begin to learn to adjust your course based on where you are at that moment. And being “in the moment” is a life lesson that can’t be underestimated!
When you really take the time to sit down and analyze the how and why of your journey, you can learn some incredibly valuable lessons about your action and reaction. And once you have learned these lessons, they can be used in all areas of your life to help you create and achieve even higher, stronger, more important goals. Once you have identified your strengths and weaknesses, you can use that knowledge to your advantage and ensure that you always try to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses. This will skyrocket your chances of success now and in the future!
But, the thing is, if you are blissfully unaware of the intricacies of your journey, you will never know this as you will be missing these incredibly valuable insights and lessons.
So, if you can keep your eye on the goal while you are on your journey, this will help you to reach those successes that you are after much quicker! So, go and set your goals, and keep one eye on the journey and enjoy the process!
Cultivating a Positive Environment
One of the most important steps that you can do in the goal setting process is to give your mind a positivity makeover. You know that being positive is important right? So doesn’t it make sense to create an environment of positive thougth and feelings that surrounds you every single day to move you forward and also make you feel great?
But this can be easier said than done and how exactly can you surround yourself with positivity? Well, I have some good news for you; it isn’t really all that difficult at all! If you just follow a few simple steps you will boost your feelings of posititvity and this will support you on your journey towards your goals. Here are just a few of the steps you can use!
Remove Any Obvious Negativity Immediately
What do I mean by this; well the answer is twofold. It could be the things you surround yourself with but it could also be the people you surround yourself with. They are both equally important to the larger journey you’re on. If you have things around you that instantly conjure up negative emotions, get rid of them, or at least get them out of your immediate surroundings.
If you are surrounded by negative people, it can be very difficult to break free from that mold and live a positive life. This takes some deep introspection, and you must be willing to remove these people as much as possible from your immediate surroundings. Now, I do understand that this can be incredibly difficult, especially if some of these people are your close friends. But be honest with yourself and ask “what are they really bringing to my life; do they enrich or impoverish it?” You need to find the courage to remove these negative influences fast and, believe me, the reward you will immediately gain will be very obvious once you’ve accomplished it.
Ban Clutter
Clutter stresses most people out, and the last thing you need when trying to cultivate a life of positivity is negative stress. So get rid of the clutter!
Clean off and organize all “horizontal surfaces” – tabletops, desks, counters, windowsills. These are generally problem areas in the battle against clutter.
But how do I decide what gets thrown away? Easy! Hold the object. Does it evoke a joyful feeling, a happy memory? If it does, great but if it doesn’t it is time to get rid of it. Your life is far too short to hold onto things simply because you feel you “should”, or because someone bought it for you and you feel obligated to keep it.
Those areas that typically house a lot of “stuff” should be organized, with a place for everything, and everything in its place. Your desktop is a perfect example – it’s much easier to sit down and work when you have a clear, positive space in which to do so!
Stack The Positivity!
The final part is to start adding in positive things to your environment. Art, music, living plants, or maybe even a small, calming aquarium! By adding things to your surroundings that you love and enjoy, you’ll have a much more positive experience when in those surroundings. Your productivity will increase, and you’ll be well on your way to those end goals!
3 of the most common PPC marketing mistakes
Pay per Click (PPC) marketing is a very powerful tool in the internet marketers arsenal but just like any other advertising campaign it needs to be planned out well before you start spending any money on your advertising
If you begin your PPC marketing plan without prior preparation you have set yourself up to potentially lose a lot of money very quickly, not to mention a lot of wasted hours. There are some great books available that you can read that will help you optimize your PPC marketing campaign.
But you can do all this without reading them if you avoid a few of the more common mistakes that most new marketers make. If you find you are making one or more of theses errors, don’t panic as they can easily be rectified and you can get your campaign back on track.
The 3 most common PPC mistakes are:
- The most common mistake people make when creating their PPC marketing plan is to send the prospect to their home page. This may seem logical to you but there are reasons why this should not be done. People who click on your advertisement are looking for specific information and this is probably not available on your home page. You are much better off sending them to a squeeze or landing page as this allows you to send your prospect to exactly the right information that they were looking for. They will be happy and if your message resonates with them, they are much more likely to take action whether that be to enter their email address or buy your product or service. Each of your landing pages should be keyword specific relating to your ad. It should also be clean and shouldn’t contain any other links or distractions that may confuse them and cause them to leave.
- Keep it simple. As touched on in the previous point, if your landing page causes confusion you will lose sales as a result as people don’t want to be made to feel stupid! If you create a PPC that is highly targeted to the keywords the visitor is searching for it will result in consistent sales as long as it easy for them to read and understand. Your landing page address should ideally contain the keyword that they are searching for. Make sure that it is easy for the prospect to find. You should also have several different landing pages if you have several different keywords or topics.
- Know your keywords. All the search engines are different and will use their own methods and discretion as to where to place your ad for greatest exposure. One of the biggest PPC mistakes that people make is that they do not laser target their keywords and as a result end up losing optimum placement on the search engines for their ad for that particular keyword. Over 85% of all search engine results are based on the top three ads. If you are not able to hone in on your keywords you will probably not make the top three and this could cause you to potentially lose sales as a result so really concentrate on getting your keywords dialled into your target prospect.
As you can see the most common mistakes made by new users to PPC marketing are very easy for anyone to make and there are probably a lot of more experience marketers making them too and therefore potentially throwing money away, not just in the cost of their ad but also in lost revenue. Knowing how to identify and fix them is the key to a great profitable PPC marketing campaign.