Bankrolls and Goals

A vision is the pig picture of where you want to go; a goal is a specific milestone that helps you get closer to your vision.

There are some important qualifications for goals:

• They should be specific (measurable)
• They should be serious, but at the same time attainable
• They should have a deadline

As an example: a goal may be to earn $15,000 of net profit prior to December 31.

It is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to write down your goals and keep them in view…on
your computer, to-do list, or at your desk where they are in plain sight.  It is a simple fact that people to have written visible goals accomplish many times more than those who don’t.

In the book What They Don’t Teach You in the Harvard Business School, Mark McCormack tells about a study conducted on students in the 1979 Harvard MBA program.  In that year, the students were asked, “Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?” Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.

Start by writing out your short term goals. What you would like to aim for in the next 3 months? Learn to speak in public, practice closing sales, find a niche,  increase your database of clients?  Do a mind map, write them on a piece of paper or use a white board.

Once you are clear about your goals and you have a vision of how things will be when you have achieved it, then planning how to get there is relatively easy. We will talk a bit more about planning later but a successful plan has three ingredients:

1. A clearly defined goal

2. A sequence of milestones required to reach the goal

3. The physical actions required to achieve each step

Make a habit of daily goal setting, reviewing, and achieving, for the rest of your life.  Put the spotlight on the things you want, rather than the things you don’t
want. Make your mind up to be a goal-seeking organism, moving precisely toward the things that are important to you. Re-evaluate your goals periodically. And don’t forget, when you reach one take your wife, husband, or special friend to dinner and celebrate and commemorate your success!

They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put
together?

Precisely.