Setting Your Goals

Happy Half New Year! 2021 is officially halfway over, or at least it will be in a few days. Are you halfway to your goal for the year? Are you pacing ahead of your goal, or have you fallen behind? Or are you like most people, your goals have fallen by the wayside, and you are not even tracking them anymore. It is never to late to reset or start setting and tracking your goals. Let’s take a look at the steps needed to get you either back on track or even better yet, make the second half of the year better than the first.

Before we begin with the process of setting goals, we need to talk about the biggest mistake made when setting them. That mistake is, make your goals about money. It feels natural to make your goals based upon money, it does make the world go round. However, goals are never actually about money, they are about what the money will afford you. Think about it this way, when get your paycheck, you don’t cash it and spread out the money on your bed and roll around in it, and if you do it would only be for a minute and then you would get bored. By the way, congratulations on a great month. Sidetracked, let’s get back on topic. The reason you see people do this in the movies when they have a large windfall of money is they are celebrating, not the money itself but all the things they can now do with the money. Money is just a means to an end. There is no REAL emotional attachment to money. It is what you plan to do with the money that creates the emotional attachment. Therefore, when you make your goals about money, you have not REAL emotional attachment. However, when you make your goals about what the money can afford you, there is emotional attachment and the extra motivation to achieve your goal.

Now, that we have that out of the way, let’s look at how you actually go about setting goals.

Step 1: Decide EXACTLY what you want in each of the key areas in your life.

1. Lifestyle – What kind of lifestyle do you want to have for you and your family? Do you want the finer things in life, do you want to spend lots of time with family and friends, or are you looking to find the perfect balance between the two? It is very important to define this first and understand that you may have to give up one area or another to build to this goal. A lifestyle goal can take a long time to build to.

DITTip: Create small goals (baby steps) that will achieve your ultimate lifestyle goal.

2. Health – Your health and wellness is goals are very important and they are goals that not only need to be achieved, but they must also be maintained. Health and wellness is both your mind and body. You must set goals to achieve your optimal state for both of these as well as put together a plan to achieve both. Once you reach this optimal state, you must then have a plan to maintain this optimal state of mind and body.

DITTip: Most people as soon as the achieve a health or wellness goal, they forget about maintaining it and they end up right back where they started. DO NOT fall for this trap, if you are not going to commit to maintaining the goal, then it is not worth even starting. We are not about proof of concept, we are about sustained results.

3. Income – Income is very important. I know I said money shouldn’t be a goal, however income is different than money. Income is how you pay for the Lifestyle you want. Use your Lifestyle goals to determine the amount of income needed to achieve them. Then determine the efforts needed to generate that income.

DITTip: Remember to keep in mind the Lifestyle, the enjoyment of what the income affords is the end goal and this stage is just about the plan and execution to earn the money needed to achieve this Lifestyle.

Step 2: Put them in writing – Anytime you put something in writing it becomes real. It is no longer just a thought in your head. Additionally, as you write your goals out, they become front of mind and a main focus. This focus will lead to greater chance of achievement.

DITTip: Post-it note your goals on your bathroom mirror and Post-it note your successes on your bedroom mirror.

Step 3: Assign a deadline – A goal without a deadline is only a dream. Deadlines create a sense of urgency. Anything that does not have a deadline, will get replaced by something that does and you will never achieve your goals when you put them off to other tasks.

Step 4: Create a game plan that ensures achievement – “Failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

Imagine going on a road trip across the country with a specific destination in mind and a timeline of when you need to get there. One of the first things you would do is map out how you were going to get there, right? Of course, you would otherwise you would just end up driving around lost. Goals are no different. With out a plan to achieve your goals, you are just going to be wandering around lost.

DITTip: PLAN YOUR WORK and WORK YOUR PLAN!

Step 5: Identify the knowledge, tools, and skill sets needed to achieve your goal – New skill sets are typically required for anything new that you want to accomplish. Especially if it is something that you have never done before. Let’s say for example you want to make your child a birthday cake. You will need a recipe (knowledge), mixers, an oven & ingredients (tools), and ability to execute the recipe (skill set).

DITTip: DO IT TODAY Learning Network provides you with the knowledge, tools, and skill sets need to accomplish any sales goal.

Step 6: Identify any potential roadblocks that may keep you for achieving your goal. – BE PROACTIVE. The people who accomplish the most in life are PROACTIVE and not Reactive. They make things happen. They do not wait for things to happen to them. Part of being proactive is knowing what the potential pitfalls or roadblocks are that may prevent you from achieving what you want and preparing for them so they will not prevent your success!

Step 7: Identify the people who can help you achieve your goal – Everyone can use a helping hand. Every great athlete has a coach. Every great salesperson has made more than their fair share of mistakes and learned from them. Why shouldn’t you learn from their mistakes as well? I mean not only can you learn from their mistakes you can also learn how to imitate all of the things that they have done in order to be successful. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery!

Step 8: Daily Habits – Write down your goals every morning. Visualize what it will be like when you achieve your goals. Measure and monitor your progress. Write down your successes every night and review goals. You can not improve what you don’t measure and if you only measure monthly you can end up with a bad month. However, if you measure daily you can only end up with a bad day and when that happens you can correct the course and put yourself back on track.