If there’s one thing I have learned about successful people, it’s this — they have written goals and their goals are proper targets that they will achieve or try to achieve.
They will be broken down and there would be a plan to get to them. Now for those of us who do not have written goals, you are just playing it by ear, you think chancing around to see how it goes.
If you are successful and lucky, if you’re not successful it’s because you didn’t have a roadmap.
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If you’re trying to get to a location you’ve never been to before, how would you get there?
You’re going to enter it into your GPS, into your iPhone, into your car satellite navigation system or you’re going to have a map.
But whatever way, you are going to enter the destination. And then, either or any of those methods are going to tell you how to get there.
So, what’s the difference in your business? You need to know what you’re going to go. Do not give me the, “I want to make $1 million”, that’s rubbish, that is not going to happen, that’s just boring.
If you’re going to have a monetary goal it’s got to be achievable within a time frame, but it has to have some significance.
If you want to make say $3 million, is that because you think you can earn 10% of that a year and $300,000 a year before taxes is enough to keep you going in a lifestyle without having to work — that’s good.
But give it a time because that’s going to take a while, that’s a good aim. But then it needs a plan, doesn’t it? You can’t just say, let’s go. And that’s the same every single week, so if you have, let’s just work on that one.
Say you wanted to make $3 million. What are you going to set? Five years, seven years, ten years? That’s a lot of money, that’s a big aim.
If you never want to work again it’s very, very achievable. Now if you take 10% earnings of that and that is achievable, there are ways of doing it because you’ve got to diversify that income, so you put the 3 million into stuff.
3 million by the way, would be in addition to your own house and your car and things because you can’t earn money off of those because you need them.
So, say you’re going to lose half of it in taxes that’s going to leave you $150,000, you’re going to have running expenses, things like that, you’ve got a lot of money.
You’re going to send your kids to college, you’re going to, who knows, you’re going to have a couple of holidays, you’re going to have a new car every couple of years; work out what those will cost if you really want to set a goal.
Now you have to work back how are you going to achieve that? You’re going to have to earn money and you’re going to have to save money.
And meanwhile you’re going to have to live frugally. Yes, it needs a plan. The best way, by the way is to get the goal and work backwards from there, not to work forwards, to work backwards and end up workout where you need to be, say, in a year’s time.
Once you know where you need to be in a year’s time, you can figure out what do I need to do in the next three months, this quarter. So just look at, you’ve got your long-term plan, you’ve got your one year plan and then you need to break down that one year plan.
So let’s do it in quarters. Now this is how I do it, by the way, a lot of people and I think, I think I have said this before, I don’t just make this stuff up, this is because I have learned from experts and I’ve been around a while, gray hair, 50 years old, done this for a while, this is how it works.
Break it down, what do you need to do in the next three months that would help achieve that goal in a year? You don’t need to worry about the second three months, the third or the fourth quarter, you can get those when they are necessary, 90 days.
What I generally do is break that down into three major projects. A project is something that I am not currently doing or that something that needs to be drastically changed or enhanced, so it’s like a new thing, that will upon completion will contribute towards reaching my one-year goal.
The one-year goal will contribute towards reaching my five-year or ten-year or whatever, etc. etc. okay, so that’s what the project is. There can be mini projects and major projects.
Some things take a couple of days to get done which is fantastic. It doesn’t matter. Some things will go on and on and involve other people; if they do, break them down into mini projects, okay, into smaller bite-sized chunks otherwise it seems too overwhelming.
So say for instance you want to start a new website, that is a big undertaking, so you need to break that down, you need a design, you need hosting, you need content, you need the first number of pages, you need images, yeah?
Do you see what I mean? So those would be the mini parts and they contribute towards the larger one.
So, let’s go back to that quarter. So I think three projects for the quarter. Now I try, I try not to do them all at once, but inevitably something has a delay and you start the other one. It’s not the best idea but hey, it’s better than having 10 going on at the same time.
The theory is that one project per month sounds achievable; there’s four weeks in a month, they sound achievable. If at the end of one month you’ve done 12 projects, it’s got to be pretty good, isn’t it? That’s a lot.
So, project number one, in theory, I have got a month, so let’s break that down. What do I need to do this week?
So let’s say it is something that takes a bit of time, let’s figure out what I’d need to get done this week to have that ready to have that project complete in four weeks, the end of the month.
Now I’ve got the week, I’ve got five days, so if I break that down into 10 things, it doesn’t always work like that, some things take more parts, some take less.
Like I say sometimes an entire project can be done in a couple of days but I’m just giving you a way of breaking down something bigger, break it down into 10 and then that’s two things a day.
Now, which needs to be done first? What is the most important? What if you did, what now you would be nearer to getting your goal?
Do that first. It doesn’t matter; it doesn’t have to be in any particular order. So for instance when you’re thinking about that the web design, it may be one of the things to decide how many pages of content you need for that initial website, so that you can get someone off writing them while you get on with the other things, okay.
So, think it through. What is the most important, do with that first.
And then every single day you’ve got two things to pick off the list, you’ve got to get two with things done per day, and then you can get on with the rest of whatever you do in the day.
So what are you going to get done? What important work, how far towards your goal are you going to be at the end of this week? Do you see how that goes, what progress? If you’re not making progress, you’re not getting anywhere.
Monday Book Recommendation
It’s Monday, it’s time for a book for the week. Now this is a, as John Lee Dumas says, “This is a doozy.” Today’s book recommendation is“Platform” by Michael Hyatt.
Michael Hyatt needs no introduction. “Platform” is a fabulous book, you can go to his website at michaelhyatt.com, but just look up “Platform” in Amazon.
It is pretty much a roadmap of how to build an online presence, and it’s fabulous. Michael Hyatt has done this. He worked for a big publishing house, a good leader and then he wanted to build his own platform and he’s done it, he is a mentor to many.
I highly recommend his book and everything he does, his podcast, his social media, everything he is a perfectionist, but does it well and gets stuff done.
Go see what Michael Hyatt has the say. I’ll see you tomorrow.
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What goals do you need to set?
