High Octane Performance

Archive for the ‘Setting Goals’ Category

Seeing astounding results from Goal-Setting. The first question I get is “What does this have to do with Real Estate Investing?” Technically, nothing. In reality, everything. Without knowing where you’re headed and how you want to get there, you will never be a successful Real Estate Investor. Investing in Real Estate takes time, and without a roadmap, you’ll wander aimlessly and never reach your destination.

Before I talk about setting goals, a word about why. Why set goals? Why spend so much time thinking about, writing down, reviewing and rewriting your goals? All this goal crud certainly isn’t making you any money, so why bother?

In a study done in 1953 at Yale University, the graduating class was asked if they had a set of written goals with a plan. Less than 3% had a written set of goals with a clear plan of action. Twenty years later, in 1973, the researchers went back and interviewed the people they’d talked to in 1953. The 3% that had written goals were worth more than the other 97% COMBINED!

Say you decide to mentor with me. Think about trying to find your way here to the training. You know the training is in a city somewhere, but you don’t know exactly where it is, which roads to take, don’t have a map, or when the class starts. You just know you want to get to the training sometime soon. Think you’ll make it in time for our weekend together? NO!

This is why I think setting goals are so important. If you don’t have a map, if you don’t have a very clear, defined, laid-out plan for getting where you’d like to be, and when you’d like to be there, I can guarantee you won’t arrive at your destination.

Okay, enough proselytizing!

What is a Goal?

Geez, what a stupid question, everyone knows what a goal is, right? Maybe, but I think it’s worth saying it again.

A goal is a personal desire that is 1) clearly defined, 2) attainable 3) measurable, 4) plannable & 5) has a purpose. Take, for example, the goal “I want to be thinner”. Sure, this is an admirable wish, but it’s not a goal. What is ‘thinner’? How am I going to be ‘thinner’? How will I tell when I’m ‘thinner’? When am I going to get ‘thinner’?

Turning the wish “I want to be thinner” into a goal means changing it to “By January 1st, 2004, I will have a bodyfat content of 10%. I will attain this through running 3 miles every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, lifting weights on Monday and Friday, and cutting my caloric intake to 1,800 calories per day. I will have my bodyfat tested at the gym once weekly. When I have achieved my goal I will feel better about how I look, I will feel more energetic, I will be healthier, I will have more energy, and will live longer for my wife and children”

Now this is a goal. It’s clearly defined, attainable (unless you’ve written this on December 31st), is measurable, has a plan, and has a reason why. This is how all your goals should look.

Types of Goals

There are three basic types of goals.

1) Personal Goals. Emotional, Social, Spiritual, Physical, Charitable goals. Things like I want to be thinner, I will tithe 10% of my net profit to my church, I will spend more time with my kids, I will be happier, etc.

2) Material Goals. Tony Robbins calls these “Thing Goals”. I will go to Tahiti next year, I will buy the Lexus SC430 by 12/31/08, I will buy a place in the country, etc.

3) Financial Goals. Where I want to be financially. I want to have a net worth of 5 million dollars in 5 years, I want to have $10,000 gross monthly income from my properties in 2 years, etc.

So Now What?

So you have the definitions, you have the general outline. So what do you do?

Here’s what I would suggest:

Take an afternoon away from distractions. No phone, no email, etc. If you can’t take a whole afternoon, break it up into 1-hour bites. I personally think you’ll barely get started in an hour, but it’s better than nothing.

Take 10 minutes per type of goal. Brainstorm with yourself. Write your wishes. Don’t write anything specific, just what you want. “I want to be thinner”, “I want to have a close relationship with my kids”, “I want to spend more time on charitable activities”, “I want that Lexus”, etc. Write as fast as you can. Don’t let what you think you can or can’t achieve hold you back. This isn’t a time for deciding what you CAN do; it’s time for writing what gets you excited. Time yourself, go quickly, but quit at the end of the 10 minutes for each type.

Once you’ve spent your 10 minutes on each type of goal, get out another piece of paper, and write down your top ten goals from the Personal Goals. Now spend five minutes on each of these. Rewrite the goal so that it’s clearly defined. “I want to be thinner” becomes “I will have 10% bodyfat”. Then, start with desire – why do you want this goal? What’s in it for you? Next, when will you achieve this goal? How will you achieve it, what’s the plan? How will you measure it? Don’t worry terribly right now if it’s attainable. Worry about that later.

When you finish your top ten goals for each of the three types, you’ll have spent about 4 hours total. You should be exhausted. Put these aside, for review in a week. Don’t do anything yet.

In one week, come back to your goals. I would again suggest setting aside an afternoon. Look at your goals, review what you’ve written, and rewrite what you need.

Ongoing Maintenance

Here’s what I do on a daily basis. I have a financial goal that is my long-term goal, and my goal for the year. I recite this out loud daily. Here’s a snippet from my goals in 2003:

“By June 6, 2009 (my 50th birthday), I will have a net worth of 5 million dollars. (Right now I’m imagining looking at my bank account with a bolded total of $5,000,000.00). Three million will be in cash or liquid assets, 2 million will be in equity or non-liquid assets.”

“In return for this money, I will assist people out of financial difficulties (imagining sellers I’ve helped), into a home they could otherwise not afford (imaging my FAVORITE tenants), and fixing up houses nicer than they were before.”

“I will achieve this through continued daily marketing efforts, learning as much as I can about Real Estate Investing, and working smart and hard to provide a good life for myself, my wife and my daughters.”

“In 2003, I will close an average of two deals per month, with an average up front option deposit of $5,000, $200 monthly cash flow and $10,000 minimum at sale.”

There’s more, but you get the idea. Of course I have this memorized so I usually recite it when I’m in my car with my cell-phone headset on because I don’t want people to think I’m talking to myself. I’m not ready for the rubber room!

On a weekly basis, I will take out my very short-term goals. Marketing, financial for the month, personal, etc. I review these and make sure I’m on track, or that my track still makes sense. If I’m not on track, I try to figure out why. If I need to change my track, I rewrite my goal. This usually only takes a few minutes.

Monthly, I’ll review longer-term goals and make sure they’re on track. Same thing here.

And yearly, I spend an afternoon going over my current goals, revamping what needs to be revamped, and rewriting everything.

And FINALLY!

If you commit to this, if you find the time to set your goals, and treat them as something that makes you money, brings you happiness and serenity, you will achieve what you dream. But take the time to do this. This is the ‘fundamentals’. This isn’t the most exciting thing you can do, but driving 70 mph without a map, not know where you’re headed will get you nowhere – fast. It’s fun for a while, but really just wastes gas.

Scott Taylor
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/how-setting-goals-can-make-you-wildly-successful-55940.html

Are you thinking about setting your personal goals? What are your resolutions for the new year?

This is a busy time of year. Personally and socially there are cards to send, gifts to buy, and parties to attend. Professionally there are reviews, audits, and projects to wrap up before the years end. It is no wonder that we tend to push everything that can be postponed off until after the holidays.

However this is an important time of year for you to take stock both personally and professionally to determine whether or not your life is on track. When was the last time you thought about your life goals? Are you on track to achieving those goals?

No matter how busy this time of year there is still time to take a quick measurement and evaluate your progress. After all, there will be plenty of time waiting in line, stopped in traffic, and wrapping presents when your mind is free to think of other things.

It is important to think about your personal goals before New Year’s Eve for a number of reasons. Number one is that it is never a good idea to make life-altering decisions under the influence of alcohol. But there are other important factors as well. It is likely during various holiday parties and events that you will come into contact with a number of people that can inspire you or help you strive for your goals. It is also a popular holiday question so it is a good idea to have a ready answer.

Also this is a natural time to take stock of your life, your success, and your failure. Conduct a personal audit just as so many businesses do.

Of course, it is also important to have your goals clear in your mind so you can get right to work on them. You can start right away but certainly should begin by Jan. 2. You want to take full advantage of the new year. Do not delay until the holiday decorations are packed away and all the holiday leftovers consumed. Look ahead, plan ahead, and then take action.

It is important to have goals and dreams. They are what makes a successful, happy life possible. But it is also important to re-evaluate those goals from time to time and extremely important to act upon those goals.

Now is the time to set your personal goals and make your resolutions for the new year so you are ready to get to work on the first day of the new year.

Deanna Mascle
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/setting-personal-goals-what-are-your-resolutions-for-the-new-year-86105.html

First step on your way to success is to set goals for yourself.

Situation

I am at this moment in a special situation. I used to be self-employed for the last 8.5 years. My partner and me were creating affiliate tools and leasing out websites. In January a customer issued a problem with a financial software we´ve created for him in 2003 and which he was using with satisfaction since then.

Now he has discovered that some of the financial figures that software used, have been wrong from the first day he has used the software. While investigating the problem, it came out, he was right.

So, clearly our fault, we will have to comensate the customers loss of money resulting out of that software failure.

In the end of january he came up with the final calculation: We have to pay $60,000 to compensate his loss.

A short look at our bank statement revealed the naked truth: we have to file bankruptcy. No question about that.

So, what should we do now? We both have a family and children. First step was, we were lucky enough to find a real job as employees. My partner now works for an online bank and I found a financial agent looking for an affiliate manager.

So, since Feb. 1st, we have a continuous income for the next months.

But, being an employee is not what we have always wanted. As a first step, this looks like an option for now, but not for the rest of our lifes.

Goal setting

For now, my financial situation is not satisfying. Though the money is enough to pay the bills, there is still my part of the $60,000 open for payment. As my person used to be a 50% portion of our company, I´m standing in front of a $30,000 pile of depts.

With my new income as an employed affiliate manager, I will clearly be unable to pay that bill.

So, I have to set goals for the next months and years to resolve from this situation.

Here is a first draft of the plan, I´ve made so far:

1. Setup an online business

2. Work on that business and make it profitable

3. Set the business on auto-pilot

4. Go back to step one

Step one is already in progress as your are reading this article on my website. This site will be my new online business.

Ok, this one was easy to take, step two will be much harder to achieve. I am already working on an article covering the topic of making a website profitable. I think, my experiences of the last 8.5 years will help me with that.

Achievable goals

As this is the headline of this post, I have to say at least a few words on that.

Most people don´t even realize, that they have to set goals for themselves. You cannot achieve your goals, if you don´t even know, what your goals are.

Those who have set goals, sometimes realize, that those goals are too far away from reality, making it unpossible to reach them.

No wonder, most of them are getting somewhat frustrated and as time goes by, they also tend to stop heading for their goals.

Do you think, these people would ever achieve whatever they wanted to achieve?

No question, that they won´t.

Imagine, you have setup your new business and you want to establish an income of, let´s say, $10,000 per month from that business. Sure, a very attractive imagination. But is it realistic enough to say, I want to generate this amount of income within the next 3 to 6 months? That would be a very hard time and in the end, you will be really frustrated.

A much better approach is to set goals in smaller steps. When you setup a new website and you want to monetize it with Google AdSense for example, set a small goal to achieve first. Let´s say, I want to make more than $10 per day within the next 6-8 weeks. This is far more easy, and hey, that results in some $300 of extra income each month.

We consider that goal to be achieved in time, and your new website makes those $300 per month for you. So you are to setup a new goal then. Again, it´s better so set a smaller goal you want to reach within some weeks, than one large goal you want to reach within a year or more.

Let´s say, your next goal is to double your income. Who the hell would not like this idea? And guess what, doubling your first small success of generating $10 a day is not that impossible. Imagine you would make $1,000 a day at this time and want to double that amount. That would be a very hard time.

So, your next goal could be to raise your income from $10 a day to $20 a day. Time range could be a bit smaller this time, as you have acquired some experiences and obviously know how to make money from a website at all. So new time limit is 4-6 weeks for doubling your daily income.

Success story

You surely will achieve your goals, when you keep in mind to set them small enough so that your own goals will not frustrate you on your way to financial freedom.

Keep up your track and remember to make your goals achievable for you. We have seen, that small goals can be somewhat easy to achieve. Now, your new business is max. 14 weeks old and provides you with more than $600 in revenues each month.

Check it with your calculator: If you keep up this way of adding $10 to your daily revenue every 6 weeks for the rest of the year, your income will raise to >$2,400 per month.

You can definitely find a job with a lower paycheck.

My next article will be about several ways to generate income from a website in general. I´m already working on that, so stay tuned for this valuable information.

Marco
http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/setting-achievable-goals-124795.html

successful businessmen and businesswomen and all types of achievers in all the different fields. The basics of setting goals give you short-term and long-term motivation and focus.

They help you set focus on the acquisition of required knowledge and help you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met your goals. Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the stages of completion leading to the actual realization of your goals.

This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals.

The basics of goal settings will involve deciding what you really want to do with your personal life and what short term and long term goals you need to achieve it. Then you have to break down goals into the smaller and manageable targets that you must complete in your way to achieving your lifetime targets. Once you have your list waste no time in tackling your goals.

A good way to have a manageable list is to have a daily and weekly set of goals. By doing this you will be always in the position of going towards you life plan goals. Everyday will give you the opportunity to fulfill a certain goal giving you the feeling of accomplishment.

Here are some pointers that should be taken into consideration in setting goals and achieving them.

Attitude plays a very big role in setting and achieving your goals. You must ask yourself if any part of you or your mind holding you back towards completing your simplest goals? If there are any part of your behavior that is being a hindrance or puts your plans into disarray? If you do have problems in these areas then the immediate thing to do is to address this problem. Solutions may include a visit to a doctor or psychiatrist to control your emotions.

Careers are made by good time management practice. Failing in a career is often attributed to bad time management. Careers require a lot from an individual which often makes the career the life of the individual. Plan how far do you want to go into your career.

Education is key in achieving your goals. If your goals require you to have a certain kind of degree or require a certain specialization or demand a certain skill to be developed, make plans in getting the appropriate education.

Your family should never be left out of your plans. If you are just starting out then you have to decide if you want to be a parent or when you want to be a parent. You also have to know if you really would be a good parent and how well would you relate to extended family members

Personal financial situations also play a major role in achieving your goals. Have a realistic goal on how much you really want to earn. You also must be able to create plans or stages by which you will be able to reach your earning potential.

Physically gifted individuals may be able to achieve sports related goals like being in the National Basketball association or National Football League. Determining your physical capabilities should be one of your priorities. Physical limitations could however be conquered with proper planning.

As the saying goes -’All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’, or something to that effect, is by all means true down to the last the letter. Giving yourself a little pleasure: should be included into your plans.

To start achieving your lifetime goals, set a quarter of a century plan, then break it down to 5 year plans then break it down again to 1 year plans, then 6 month plans then monthly plans, then weekly, then daily.

Then create a things-to-do list for the day.

Always review your plans and prepare for contingencies.

The basics of goal settings should not be so difficult once you get to be familiar with them.

Steve Hudson
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/setting-your-goals-easier-said-easily-done-83355.html

We all have goals but most people fail to achieve the goals they set themselves and never get what they want. This article is not just about goal setting anyone can do that but how to achieve your goals.

Let’s look at goal setting and how to achieve the goals you set by using some simple steps.

Set Your Goals

We all have different goals we want to achieve. They maybe be personal or they maybe business it doesn’t matter write them down.

Put them in order of priority and now its time to look at how to achieve them.

This trait is needed!

The trait you need to achieve your goals and anything flows from it is:

The desire to achieve.

If you don’t have a burning desire you won’t get anywhere it’s your motivation. In life you will hear of may people who started at a huge disadvantage and achieved their goals – They did it and you can to

Realism and dreaming

Many people when they goal set are really dreaming. They want something that is totally out of their reach and have no chance of achieving it.

When you set goals they must be realistic. They can be ambitious but remember every journey starts “with one small step”

If it’s an ambitious goal then you need to reach it in steps. So you have several sub goals (steps) that lead you to your final goal.

This will give you a sense of achievement when each sub goal is met and make the journey less daunting.

You will be focused, motivated to hit each sub goal and if you have the desire and motivation you will reach your ultimate goal

Time

Is precious and when it passes you can’t get it back, so you need to make the most of it and use it wisely.

Have you ever looked at someone and wondered how they get so much done? Well if you have they will be well aware of time management.

Time & Your goal

You need to work out how much time each goal you have takes and allocate time and effort regularly.

A key to time management is to delegate tasks away that you can and concentrate on what’s important to you.

There Is more to goal setting

This article is really a basic introduction to goal setting and our other articles in this series cover more specific ways to get to your goalsm but the basics of goal setting and more importantly, achieving your goals are based upon the following:

Desire – To achieve a goal.

Realism – In terms of what you want to achieve.

Steps – Getting there in simple specific steps with strict time management.

You can do it!

The fact is anyone can set and reach goals if they use the above format.

So set your goals don’t be a dreamer and set off on a road that will bring you what you want in life today.

Sacha Tarkovsky
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/goal-setting-how-to-achieve-your-goals-and-your-dreams-82774.html

Without them, our endeavors would all be in vain as we sit idly by and watch our interests stagnate.

In the world of real estate investing, goals are extremely important. Every investment opportunity requires several goals pertaining to scheduling, budgeting, construction, and marketing. If you are to make money in real estate, you have to stick to your plan and achieve the goals that you have made for your project. If you fail to do so, you could sacrifice a great deal of your profit or ultimately see your investment fail.

The first step to setting goals in real estate investing is that they have to be realistic. Don’t try to cram 8 weeks of construction into 4. If you really want to complete construction in 4 weeks instead of 8, trim away excess and unnecessary renovation projects rather than try to work quickly or around the clock. Setting unrealistic goals only sets you up for failure, and a sense of failure can ruin the entire outlook and motivation for a project.

Goals of the financial variety are also extremely important in real estate investing. In any sort of money-making venture, you need to know how much money you are going to invest and how much money you would like to make in the bargain. But more important than these short-term financial goals are the long-term goals.

These goals center on how much money you want to invest over a long period of time with what results. For example: You may have made your first investment with a small sum of money, and part of this money may have been financed through an equity loan, personal loan, by other means, or through a combination of sources. If you continue using these same sources of funding without upping the ante any, you will not move forward in your investing business. This is where long-term goals come in.

Long-term financial goals do not focus on your immediate real estate investing project. They instead look to the future. A great example of this type of goal would be having your loans paid off and be investing purely with profit after your third investment. Another example would be to be able to purchase more expensive properties or multiple properties instead of focusing on just one low-budget project at a time.

When setting your goals, keep in mind that no two investors will have the same goals. While you can draw inspiration from your peers, don’t try to absorb their business strategies as your own. Instead, look to your own future and set goals that will lead your real estate investing ventures in the direction that you wish them to go.

James Klobasa
http://www.articlesbase.com/non-fiction-articles/your-guide-to-setting-real-estate-investing-goals-99266.html

How much focus have you got in your business? Have you set smart goals for your personal life, your business life and for the marketing of your business?

If you want to grow your network marketing business then you will need to be doing some marketing (just like any business).

What this means is that you approach your network marketing business in a professional way and treat it like the opportunity that it is. This means finding out your target market, knowing what appeals to them and communicating that with them in ways that they can understand and in places your message will reach them.

However, it’s really important that before you start any marketing activity at all that you know what you are trying to achieve with your marketing. In fact, I would go as far as to say that you should not even attempt to do any marketing activity, or attempt to grow your network marketing business, unless you have written down your Smart Goals.

Your marketing, after all, is what will achieve your business goals and ultimately your personal goals. And the achievement of your personal goals is probably why you came into network marketing in the first place.

If you can’t get customers buying your products, then how are you going to make sales? If you can’t find people to join you in your network then how are you going to build a residual income? Sales and residual income mean money. I know money isn’t everything, but what money does is paves the way to your dreams. And your dreams are absolutely everything.

The only way you’re going to make your money is via your marketing. You use your marketing to find your customers and attract the right business prospects to you. And your marketing, as I said, needs some ‘smart goals’ setting before you start.

The word ‘smart’ in ‘smart goals’ stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely. There are variations on this, but essentially it all boils down to these meanings.

If you’d like to learn more about setting smart goals, my site goes into them in a lot more detail, as well as giving you some examples (see author box at the bottom of this article).

The difference between your different smart goals might look like this:
Personal goal – to retire to the Bahamas in 10 years time on an income of 100K a year
Business goal (for this year) – to build an income of 20K with a downline of 200.
Marketing goal (for this year) – to recruit 10 new frontline distributors a month (I’ll assume a percentage go on to duplicate).

The next step will obviously be how you do that. The ‘how’ becomes your marketing strategy and plan. The ‘how’ might be through online forums, advertising in the local press, business networking groups, and so on. When you put your marketing plan together it needs to have the activities in place to create, on average, 10 new distributors a month.

You see how it all links together?

10 new distributors each month gives you 120 in total. We’ll assume, for ease of maths, the other 80 come from downline duplication. So by the end of the year you have your 200.

Your income matches the 20K that you set out to achieve.

And you’re on schedule for the Bahamas.

(NB You will need to have done a bit of maths beforehand to make sure your figures add up.)

With marketing goals you can have annual goals, but also 6 monthly and quarterly, and even monthly.
It’s up to you – it’s your business – but as you keep an eye on your goals, and how you’re doing against them, you’ll know whether to adjust them or not. This is one of the reasons for setting smart goals – as they are easy to measure how you’re doing against them.

A lot of people I know have their personal goals in place (worryingly, with no plan of action of how they might achieve them).
A smaller percentage of those have their business goals in place.
A tiny proportion of those have marketing goals in place.
And the really smart ones track what they’re doing – but that’s a whole other subject!

Kim ORourke
http://www.articlesbase.com/home-business-articles/setting-smart-goals-can-take-your-network-marketing-business-to-new-heights-572756.html

Setting goals is an important aspect of a successful independent reading program. Students must have something to strive for – a goal to reach, a purpose. Setting goals also gives more autonomy to the students as they reed, for they know that they alone are responsible for reaching their reading goals. Before setting goals, you must first target each individual students reading level. Check your schools adopted reading series for a reading comprehension test, and use it to determine a targeted reading range

Once reading levels have been targeted for your students, you are now ready to set school semester goals for them. There are a variety of ways that this can be done. One way is to instruct the student to read a certain number of books in a certain period of time. You can also use a point system goal based on the points you have assigned your class library books, as mentioned earlier in this course. The idea here is to set some sort of goal that the student is to accomplish by the end of the grading period. The goal needs to be a challenge, yet attainable through the amount of class time you designate for reading.

In setting goals for your students, you must also have a way to help them track their goals. Students may seem overwhelmed by looking ahead at the larger picture. Break down the goal for them, and teach them how to track their goals into weekly expectations. For instance, if the goal is to read six books by the end of the six-week grading period, break it down, and explain that means that they should be reading at least one book per week. Having smaller goals will help them stay focused and reach the larger goal without getting frustrated. The same goes with points. If the student needs to earn 30 points in the six week term, help them break it down into the number of points they need to earn each week, which, in turn, leads to guiding them to select books worth that many points.

Many students will meet their goals prior to the end of the grading period. Make it clear early on that this doesn’t mean they can quit reading. Make it a challenge to see how far they can surpass their goal. More will be discussed on this in the lesson on rewards, but offer rewards for going above and beyond the initial goal set.

John Nowly
http://www.articlesbase.com/coaching-articles/setting-and-monitoring-goals-94532.html

Don’t Just Dream; Execute By Setting Goals

By Lynnette Khalfani
Author of The Money Coach’s Guide to Your First Million

Too many people dream of becoming a millionaire but have no real plan for how to achieve it. Well, you can’t become a millionaire just by dreaming, wanting, or wishing for wealth. As you develop the framework for your millionaire’s budget, think about planning for the future and reaching some of your bigger goals. So many times we get caught up in daily tasks and activities that we forget about setting substantive goals for the future. But in order to accrue substantial wealth, it’s essential that you write out your short-, medium-, and long-range goals. Some of you may not have thought about your own goals much lately. Perhaps your life has been consumed by your children’s world; their needs and wants always come first, and you constantly put your desires on the back burner. It’s a mistake to do that. Financially speaking, you can get yourself so wrapped up in another person—whether that individual is your child, partner, or parent—that you neglect yourself and fail to engage in smart, practical financial planning. You don’t want to look up 20 years from now and think that you should have managed your money better when you were younger.

To immediately improve how you handle your finances and make a giant leap toward becoming a millionaire, one of the most important things you can do is to write out your personal goals. This one act alone will help you build a foundation for a lifetime of wealth. If you are married or in a committed relationship, I suggest you do this exercise with your partner. Write your individual goals first, and then share your goals with the other person. Ultimately, we are all individuals with our own unique dreams and ambitions. Yet, for those of us involved with significant others, it’s crucial that you make a habit of setting— and reaching—your goals together.

I want you to think of your goals in the context of how long it will be before these goals can be realized. Short-term goals should be something that you can accomplish in a relatively brief period of time, say in one to two years, at most. Medium-term goals can be classified as those that require two to ten years to accomplish. Long-range goals are those that require ten years or more to fulfill. To jump start your thinking, I’ve included a laundry list of goals below. Some of these may be relevant to you; others may hold no significance. The idea, however, is to give yourself permission to focus on the things you want to accomplish in the future—goals you may never have acknowledged to yourself, let alone written down or verbalized to someone else. Among the goals you might pursue are:

Eliminating credit card debt.

Buying a new home.

Saving for a college education.

Investing for retirement.

Starting a business.

Establishing a cash cushion.

Paying for a wedding.

Saving for a new baby.

Purchasing a vacation home.

Traveling around the world.

Buying a boat.

Paying off student loans.

Making a large contribution to church, synagogue, etc.

Buying a new car or a second car.

One of the most important things you can do to reach your goal of becoming a millionaire is to write out your personal goals.

The Write Way

No matter what your goals, you should know that writing out your plans gives you a far better shot at making them happen. In fact, written goal-setting is a phenomenally powerful act as demonstrated by a number of high-profile cases.

A compelling example of the power of written goal-setting is represented in a 1979 survey of Harvard University students which found that 84 percent of them did not set goals. Another 13 percent of them did set goals, but didn’t bother to write them down. And only 3 percent of the graduating class had written goals and an action plan. Ten years later, researchers resurveyed the group. The 13 percent with unwritten goals were earning double the income of those with no goals. But here’s the whopper: the 3 percent of the student population with written goals earned 10 times as much as the other 97 percent!

Clearly, written goals are important. But do you realize how it is that written goals are able to propel you to reach success? Here are a few reasons why goal-setting works: |

PURPOSE: Goals give your daily and long-term actions meaning and purpose. This helps you stay motivated when you realize that you’re engaging in certain financial behaviors for a reason and not just randomly acting.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Goals also make you accountable. If you find that you’re regularly falling short of your goals, it could be that you’re not really committed to them.

STRUCTURE: Goals provide a framework or structure from which you can operate and achieve your objectives. Many of us need this structure to plug away at reaching our goals, especially long range visions.

DISCIPLINE: Goals spur you along to be consistent and disciplined in your actions since you know that a lack of discipline on your part will cause you to deviate from your plans, thereby jeopardizing your chances of hitting your goals.

SPECIFICITY: Goal-setting forces you to not just think about what you want in general terms, but to write down your aims in concrete terms. Adding the element of specificity to your goals makes you far more effective in taking the practical steps required to reach your objectives.

Written goals give you purpose, make you accountable, make your financial plan concrete, supply you with a discipline to follow, and identify specific areas to focus on.

Setting Smart Goals

Your goals have to matter to you. They have to be achievable. You want to push yourself and stretch to achieve a goal without putting it so far out of reach that you become disillusioned and give up. Remember, failure is not an option for a Millionaire-in-Training. And I believe|

that’s what you are if you’re reading this book and taking this advice seriously. I’m also a believer in setting the appropriate type of goals. SMART is an acronym that describes goals that are:

Specific

Measurable

Action-oriented

Realistic

Time-bound

Specific goals are the exact opposite of vague, hazy dreams. With the latter, someone might say, “I want to be rich,” or, “I want to save money for my kid’s college education.” Those are just general wishes, and chances are they won’t be fulfilled. But the person who sets a specific goal would define (in writing) exactly what “rich” means from his or her point of view, as in “I want to have a net worth of $5 million.” A specific goal regarding college savings might be: “I want to save $80,000 for my son’s college tuition.”

When you make goals measurable, you quantify the objective you’re seeking. In doing so, you ensure accountability and track your progress. For instance, to know where you’re going, you have to know your starting point. So if one of your goals is to have no debt, you need to know how much debt you currently have. If you add up your credit card bills and they total $20,000, then you make your goal measurable by writing down something to the effect that, “Over the next two years, I want to eliminate my $20,000 in debt.” In light of this goal, you know that after one year, if you’re staying on task, you should be able to measure your progress and find that you’ve knocked out half of your debt, or $10,000.

Action-oriented goals require you to do something, not just think about doing something. Not weigh your options. Not analyze a certain situation. Not research possibilities, and so forth. No, in |order for the goal to carry weight, you must act upon it. So let’s say you initially thought that, “I want to start a business,” was a goal. That’s far too vague. You have to amend that statement and write something along the lines of: “By the end of the month, I want to create a business plan for my new interior design business.” This way, you know you actually have to draw up the business plan. If you look up sample business plans on the Internet or investigate what lenders want in a business plan, that’s fine as a prerequisite to what you have to do. But ultimately, it’s the actual writing of your business plan that you need to accomplish.

Realistic goals are neither too ambitious nor too easy to accomplish. If you set the bar so high that it’s impossible to reach your goal, you’re only setting yourself up for failure and disappointment. By all means, make your goals challenging to reach, but be realistic in your expectations. Here’s a case in point. Let’s say one of your goals is to return to college and obtain an MBA. You already have a Bachelor of Arts degree, and you know that the MBA program you want to attend typically takes two years for the average fulltime student to complete. If you work 40 hours a week, will take courses only part time, and can study only on the weekends, don’t expect to finish the MBA program in 18 months. Given the confines of your situation, a more realistic yet still challenging goal might be: “I want to earn my MBA in two and a half years.”

Any worthwhile goal is time-bound and includes a deadline by which the goal should be met. When you include a deadline, you make your goal time-bound. Therefore, it’s not good enough to say: “I plan to buy a new home.” Instead, when writing out your SMART goal, put down something like: “Two years from now, I plan to put down a 10 percent down payment toward the purchase a $450,000 Tudor home with four bedrooms and two bathrooms.” This goal is clearly specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic for many people, and time-bound.

From The Money Coach’s Guide to Your First Million by Lynnette Khalfani; Published by McGraw Hill April 2006; ISBN: 0071470816 copyright 2006

Jeffery Anderson
http://www.articlesbase.com/finance-articles/dont-just-dream-execute-by-setting-goals-51484.html

Many people know about the power of goal setting. Some people even go through the trouble of setting goals. However, for most, part of the reason people don’t set goals is they find it to be a tedious exercise. In order to eliminate that, goal setting tools such as software can make goal setting activities much easier. The new age has arrived. Computers and the software that run them are helping humans in ways we never imaged just ten short years ago.

There are a multitude of goal setting tools out on the market. The best ones allow you to not only set goals, but also to help you achieve them. Writing down or typing a list of goals is not enough. They must be reviewed and action must be taken on a regular basis. Goal setting tools will help you do just that. I myself use goal settiong software and it really helps me to stay focused on my goals.

Depending on your preferences, some software is available on the internet and some come as software for your computer. The advantage of the internet-based goal setting software is that you can access it anywhere there’s a computer with an internet connection, and you won’t need to haul a laptop around to get to your goals.

The disadvantage is that you have to have a computer with an internet connection. Software on your computer is advantageous in that you can use it regardless of whether there is an available internet connection or not. The disadvantage is that it has to be on a laptop if you want to use it away from home. Some software will allow you to do both – it is installed on your computer and will allow you to upload your data files to the internet. Then, if you have the software installed on another computer, such as at work, you can download your data from the internet and pick up where you left off.

The first thing goal setting tools will assist you with is setting a proper goal. Many software applications have a wizard that walks you step-by-step through a properly-defined goal. In fact, it should be one of the first things that come up when you run the software. After inputting your goals, it should allow you to revisit them every time you fire up the software. It will help keep you on track until you achieve your goals.

Keith Londrie
http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/goal-setting-tools-make-achieving-goals-simple-97269.html