Seven Steps To Achieving Your Goals

Here are my Seven Steps to achieving goals. Here\’s a simple seven-part goal-setting formula that you can use to set and achieve any goal in your business life.

• Step number One: Decide exactly what you want; most people never do this.
• Step number Two: Write it down; a goal that is not in writing is merely a wish or a fantasy.
• Step number Three: Set a deadline, and if the goal is big enough or will take a long time, set some deadlines.
• Step number Four: List everything you must do to achieve your goal, whether a certain level of sales, profitability or any other objective in your business or personal life.
• Step number Five: Organize your list into a plan by setting priorities on the activities. Decide what you should do first, what you should do second, and so on. Decide what is more important and what is less important.
• Step number Fix: Take action on your plan. Immediately develop a sense of urgency. Do it now. All successful entrepreneurs are intensely action-oriented. They are busy doing things and moving them toward their goals.
• Step number Seven: And this is the key. Do something every day that moves you toward your most important goal, whatever it is at that time. Develop the power of momentum in your personal and business life once you get going. Keep going until your goal is achieved. Here is perhaps the best goal-setting exercise you will ever learn. You can practice it over and over again throughout your career. Take a blank sheet of paper and list 10 goals you want to achieve in the next 12 months.

Write your goals in the present tense as if they were already a reality, and start every goal with a word. I, for example, you would write I sell X number of dollars of my product or service each month, or I earn x number of dollars of profit each month. Once you have your list of goals, select the one goal that has the greatest positive impact on your business if you were to achieve it. Take that number one, goal your major definite purpose, and right at the top of a separate sheet of paper, then set a deadline and make a plan.

Next, take action on your plan and resolve to do something every day until you achieve that goal. This simple exercise will keep you focused. Enable you to concentrate your powers. Unleash your creativity. Increase your energy. And change your life. Just give it a try and see for yourself. Determine if entrepreneurship is right for you. Only about 10 percent of people are suited to start and build businesses. The other 90 percent are much happier and more effective, working with other people within larger businesses or organizations. You must decide if you are cut out to be an entrepreneur. At the very beginning, if you\’re going to be successful in the long run, the primary motivation for becoming an entrepreneur is not money but freedom to succeed as an entrepreneur. Your desire for personal freedom and personal control must be so intense that it overwhelms all of the other sacrifices and difficulties you will experience. The average entrepreneur works 60 hours a week, six or seven days a week, and often long into the night. When you start a business, you must be prepared to work hard, hard, and hard for four to seven years before you achieve the financial success you desire.

The two most important ingredients for entrepreneurship are, first, the courage to take great risks with your time and your money. And second, the persistence to endure month after month and year after year until you finally succeed. Fully 80 percent of people who leave the security of a salary job to start a business find that it is not the right career choice for them. They quickly become discouraged at the long hours and unending problems. They find that they are not happy working alone and being responsible for everything, including sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets. They need the comfort, companionship, and security of working within a larger organization where they can specialize and where there are people around them to do—many of the support tasks. Your primary goal in life should be to be happy. You will be happy as an entrepreneur only if you really love what you are doing and are capable of putting your whole heart into building your business—year after year with very little to show for it at the beginning. The time to decide if entrepreneurship is right for you is before you launch, not later on. After you\’ve invested months of your life and lost thousands of your hard-earned dollars, select the right business for you. Starting a business is like getting married. There must be a high level of compatibility between the person you are and the type of business you are thinking of starting. Some people fail in one kind of a business but succeed greatly in another because they were not suited to one kind of enterprise but ideally suited for something else.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: Nothing succeeds without enthusiasm. Your ability to develop and sustain a high level of enthusiasm for what you are doing is essential to keep you going in the face of obstacles and difficulties. You will be successful in producing and selling only a product or service that you really believe in, care about, and something you would be happy to sell to your father, mother, or best friend.