Here it is just a few hours before we welcome in the New Year, 2008. For some
it is a time of excitement. For others, they just want to crawl into bed and
never come out.
What is the difference between the two? The excited person has goals. They have
taken the time to decide what they want in life. They have a plan for
achievement. They want something bad enough to get off their butt and make it
happen.
Which one are you? Are you excited about the new year? Is this the year you
reach out and grab the golden ring? Have you made your plans and calculated
each step so precisely, that all you have to do is walk out the front door and
success will come to you? Do you want it so bad it hurts?
Well here are 7 steps for making your dreams come true. You can choose one or
two of these tips and have a little bit of success or you can devour all seven
and be a raging success. The difference is like the difference between a creek
and a river. A creek is small and has just a trickle of water. But, a river is
so large and big and full of momentum that everything is taken along with it.
That is the kind of success you want. A river of success and riches.
These seven steps are for the people that want more. Some people can't sleep at
night because they want success so bad. They are capable people. They are
intelligent. They are educated and uneducated. It doesn't matter which one you
are. You can succeed if you apply these goal setting principles. Yes, they are
principles. Not suggestions. Not recommendations. These are the principles of
goal setting. Once you apply these principles regularly then you become a
winner.
Step One - What Do You Want?
The first principle you need to apply is to determine what you want. If you
could have anything in the world, what would it be? Do you want a new home? Do
you wish for a fast boat or a luxury automobile? Do you want to spend more time
with your family? Do you want to be able to be your own boss? To work from
home? To retire before age 50?
If you could have anything you want what would it be? This first step don't
limit your dream. Take out a piece of paper. Number it from 1 to 50. Begin to
write the 50 things you really want in life. I can assure you, by number 12 you
are going to be struggling to write down even twenty. Now, that is exciting.
Because you can now see that you don't want everything. There are specific
things that you want.
If you make it to 50 then you can stop. I am guessing most of you will not make
it to fifty. And that's okay. It is the act of goal-setting that gets us
motivated to move in the direction of success. And once you set a goal, then
success begins to move toward you.
Step Two - What Can You Accomplish This Year?
Now go through your list and determine what seems reasonable to you this year.
Let's say you currently make $20,000 per year and you want to make a million
dollars. I won't say you can't reach a million dollars. But, how excited are
you going to be after March 30th when you are at $2,000 instead of $246,510?
You are going to be so unmotivated that your chances of success will be
plummeted against the rocks of despair.
But, let's say your goal is to double your income to $40,000 per year. That is
a very big goal to double your income. That will require you to stretch big
time. But, it only requires you to bring in a revenue of $109 a day. All of a
sudden that seems to be a reasonable goal. If you are selling something for $25
then you only have to make 4 sales a day. You CAN make four sales a day. You
CAN bring in $109 a day.
Once you reach $40,000, then the next year when you shoot for $80,000 it is
going to seem so easy. Because you have already accomplished it once. Then it
is a simple matter of just doubling your income 5 years in a row and you are so
over the top of that measly little million dollar mark. Rather than being
frustrated because you deamed an unrealistic goal, you know that the simple act
of doubling your income this year makes you 20% closer to that million dollar
mark.
So go through your list and determine what is reasonable. If you have never
blogged before and you expect to beat every established blog in the
marketplace. That may be unrealistic. But, you can begin to drive traffic to
your website. You can launch your blog and have a successful year of blogging
daily or 3 to 5 times a week. That will be a success you can build upon.
As you step through the list mark a number from 1 to 5 of what would be a
reasonable goal in terms of years to accomplish that task. If you have a goal
of making $40,000 a year and you bust through that to $140,000 a year. That is
okay. Your list should contain some ones, twos, threes, fours and fives.
Step Three - Do a Reality Check
Take the ones and write them on another sheet of paper. Then do a reality
check. If you have 40 things on your ones list; is that realistic you can do
all of them in one year?
Let's say you have a physical goal of running a marathon, increasing your bench
press lifting capability by 125% and playing basketball 4 times a week. Guess
what. I won't say you can't do it. But, I would say it may not be a reasonable
goal. I have run a couple of marathons and they require a lot of time and take
a lot out of your body as you train for them.
Go through your list and whittle it down to reasonable expectations. I don't
want you to put only things that you know you will succeed at. If you already
have tickets to go to Hawaii, then don't put that down as a goal. You have
already accomplished that goal. If all your one year goals are namby pamby
goals that isn't going to work either.
If our marathoner in the example above was to set a goal to reduce her marathon
time by 5 minutes, that might be a namby pamby goal. Come on. Make it a
challenge. Try to push yourself and exceed your expectations. Reduce your time
by 20 minutes. Now you have a reason to push yourself. Now you have a reason to
get up 30 minutes early every day. Now you have a reason to run up that killer
hill 3 more times after you are already tired. Now you can challenge yourself
to do that extra workout.
There is a fine line between namby pamby and a good goal. The good goal is a
challenge. You don't know if you will achieve it or not. If you do achieve it
you will be totally thrilled. It has to motivate you to take action instead of
sitting and watching the TV.
Step Four - Choose Four that Excite You
If you started with 20 one year goals then now is the time to whittle that list
down to 4 goals. Four things that excite you enough to get out of bed each
morning.
Take your list of five actionable items and put each one on their own page. Now
is the step where you break the goal into itsy bitsy action items. You take
your one year goal and break it down into quarters, months, weeks and days.
What do you need to do each quarter to reach your goal? Break that quarter into
3 months. What is the goal for each of those months?
Now break that one month goal into a weekly goal and then break it into a daily
goal. When you are done with this task then you know what you need to do to
each day, and even each hour of each day. How are you doing on your goal? You
know because you know what you need to do this hour, next hour and the next 24
hours.
Imagine you have a goal to get 1 million page views to your blog for the year.
So, first we break it down to 4 quarters. So, the first quarter of the year you
need to have 250,000 page views. Are you scared yet? Okay, each quarter has 3
months. 250,000 divided by 3 equals: 83,333. So each month you are targeting
83,333 page views.
That might be scary for you. But, if we break it down a little more I think you
might find it achievable. Each month has approximately 4 weeks. After a little
math you calculate you need 20,833 page views per week. Next break it to days
and hours. Now you are down to 2,976 per day and only 124 per hour. Now that
might not seem so bad.
Step Five -- Create Actionable Steps
Now that you know you only need about 3,000 page views per day, you can put
real action steps to reach that goal. Let's say that you currently have 1,500
page views per day. Those 1,500 page views come from three sources.
-
Direct Traffic - 150 Page Views
-
Referring Sites - 225 page views
-
Search Engines - 1125 Page Views
For our example we are going to say you will attempt to double each traffic
category. The question you have to ask yourself is, "What do I have to do to
double my direct traffic?" You are going to want to increase subscribers to
your rssfeeds and to your newsletters. Maybe you want to increase the number of
newsletters you send each month. Should you make your RSSFeed indicator larger?
Should you write more articles so feed readers visit more often?
Next you want to increase traffic from referring sites. How are you going to do
that? Are you going to get more StumbleUpon traffic, Digg traffic or Entrecard
Traffic? Will you need to comment more each day on other blogs? Will you send
out link exchange requests? What are you going to do? What do you have time to
do?
Finally, what page optimization strategies will you employ to increase your
search engine traffic? Maybe now all your traffic comes from Google. What can
you do to increase exposure on MSN Live or Yahoo? Will it be all on page
optimization or will you be working on getting more link love from other sites
so your page rank goes up?
Ask yourself these questions and more. Write it all down on a piece of paper.
But, before you commit do a reality check. Do you really have time to do all of
these steps? Is it worth the effort? Will you be excited 3 weeks from now if
you are making the progress you want on this goal? Can you do these steps
everyday?
Step Six - Take Action
Okay here is the most important of the steps. TAKE ACTION! Yes, you need
to take action. You have made your list of action steps. You know what to do.
You know how to do it. You know when to do it. Now do it!
Tomorrow when you wake up look at your list and take action on the most
important item on that list. If you can only take one step today what will move
you closer to your goal? Then work on that task. And only that task. Don't get
distracted by the hundreds of things needing to be accomplished. Take the
action that will be most profitable to you today.
For the next twenty one days you need to take action everyday. Go down your
action list and cross off each step as you accomplish it for that day. At the
end of the day look at this list and be proud of your productivity. Why do it
for twenty one days? Because it has been proven that if you do a task for 21
days then it becomes a habit.
Step Seven - Celebrate Success
If you accomplish your goal for that first day and received your 3000 page
views then CELEBRATE. You need to reward yourself for achieving the
impossible that first day. Because even though you thought you could do it,
only by breaking through that barrier do you gain confidence in your ability.
Now, don't celebrate too much. You have to do it all over again the next day.
But, that second day it will become easier. You have already done it once. You
can do it again. After the first month you might want to re-evaluate your goal
because it was so easy. It is okay to look at your goal and change it, but make
sure you commit to its accomplishment.
Congratulations You Are A Success
Follow these 7 steps to goal setting and you will be the master of your
environment. You will reach your money goals, your personal goals, spiritual
goals, physical goals and family goals. You will know the path to personal
success and riches. Don't wait another day. Take action to create your goals
and then to achieve your strongest desires. I wish you the best of success in
2008.
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