Goals? Who Needs Goals?
| Category: Home Based Business - Getting Started | Date: 2003-06-24 |
You do.
When you set out on a trip, do you just load up the car and start driving? Do you go to the airport and buy a ticket on the next available flight, no matter where its going? Probably not. Theres no telling where you might end up, and it could be someplace you really dont want to be.
Your destination is your goal. If youre feeling bluesy and hungry for great bar-b-que, you want to go Memphis. But if you want to enjoy the view from the top of the Empire State Building, youd best head for The Big Apple. Does it seem reasonable to have goals? No point in going to Chicago when you want to swim in the Caribbean. Success, whatever you believe it to be, is every bit as much a destination as is a physical place.
You have hopes and dreams, dont you? If you really want to achieve them, you need to make them goals. Well, no, a mid-forties gent who wants to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio cant make that a goal - he has a fantasy.
Hopes and dreams are great and we all need them, but goals are their more **business-like** cousins. Goals require commitment and dedication if you are to achieve them, and they must be written. Unwritten, they are not goals, but hopes and dreams - and fantasies. Pleasant, perhaps, but ineffective.
The reason most people never reach their goals is that they dont define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. Denis Watley
The whole idea of committing what you want to paper may be a little unsettling, a little scary. Good! That means youre taking the idea seriously, and we all need to have our mental cobwebs cleared away from time to time. Complete this starting project:
Using two pages, mark one "Business" and the other "Personal". Write down everything you want to achieve on the appropriate page. Dont make any judgments, dont include any time limits, dont worry about how youll accomplish them, just write. No matter what interruptions you have, keep returning to your writing until there is nothing more to add to the lists.
Thats it? Youve drained your brain of stuff you want to do? Put your "Personal" list aside - just for now - and go to work on setting your priorities on your "Business" list. Which of your entries is the most important to you? Do you need to accomplish other things first in order to secure the most important one? Most likely, so put them in the most reasonable order and create your **To Do** list.
In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.
Anonymous
By arranging your business goals in a logical order needed to attain your ultimate end, you have roughly divided them into Short, Intermediate, and Long Term goals, which you can now refine to suit yourself. Your short-term goals might be each days **To Do** list, or each weeks.
What? You dont keep such lists? How do you stay organized and focused? Tiger Woods didnt become a golfing legend while still in his 20s by working on his putting one day, playing tennis the next, and baseball the day after. Were not talking about locking yourself into a **straightjacket of achievement**, but of your making the best use of your time and efforts toward claiming the ultimate prize - your personal version of success. Your intermediate goals may be six months or a year away; long term may be one year, might be five.
After organizing your goals into, in effect, a time line (short, intermediate and long term), youre ready to create your Action Plan. My what? Hey! Were just talking about goals here and now youre....Relax! You put your goals in writing not just to organize them, but because doing so is an act of personal commitment: those are your goals and you are the person who will achieve them. Not by chance, but by design.
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.
Og Mandino
Keeping **To Do** lists also affords you the enormous satisfaction of crossing things out as you accomplish them. Everybody needs encouragement and motivation, and one easy way to get them is to draw a big, bold line through an item on your list of tasks.
Your Action Plan is nothing more than the things you need to do, in logical order, to realize each goal. Its your road map to success. Your goals, your plan, your success - about the only thing holding you back is inertia. So get rolling!
About the Author
Copyright (c) 2000 Kent E. Butler/Butler Marketing Group
Kent Butler is editor and publisher of Home Based Journal, a free ezine dedicated to the home-based entrepreneur. HBJ addresses a wide range of pertinent topics, from marketing to home offices, from time management to family issues. To subscribe and contact see details below.
Subscribe@egroups.com
http://www.butlermarketinggroup.com
When you set out on a trip, do you just load up the car and start driving? Do you go to the airport and buy a ticket on the next available flight, no matter where its going? Probably not. Theres no telling where you might end up, and it could be someplace you really dont want to be.
Your destination is your goal. If youre feeling bluesy and hungry for great bar-b-que, you want to go Memphis. But if you want to enjoy the view from the top of the Empire State Building, youd best head for The Big Apple. Does it seem reasonable to have goals? No point in going to Chicago when you want to swim in the Caribbean. Success, whatever you believe it to be, is every bit as much a destination as is a physical place.
You have hopes and dreams, dont you? If you really want to achieve them, you need to make them goals. Well, no, a mid-forties gent who wants to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio cant make that a goal - he has a fantasy.
Hopes and dreams are great and we all need them, but goals are their more **business-like** cousins. Goals require commitment and dedication if you are to achieve them, and they must be written. Unwritten, they are not goals, but hopes and dreams - and fantasies. Pleasant, perhaps, but ineffective.
The reason most people never reach their goals is that they dont define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them. Denis Watley
The whole idea of committing what you want to paper may be a little unsettling, a little scary. Good! That means youre taking the idea seriously, and we all need to have our mental cobwebs cleared away from time to time. Complete this starting project:
Using two pages, mark one "Business" and the other "Personal". Write down everything you want to achieve on the appropriate page. Dont make any judgments, dont include any time limits, dont worry about how youll accomplish them, just write. No matter what interruptions you have, keep returning to your writing until there is nothing more to add to the lists.
Thats it? Youve drained your brain of stuff you want to do? Put your "Personal" list aside - just for now - and go to work on setting your priorities on your "Business" list. Which of your entries is the most important to you? Do you need to accomplish other things first in order to secure the most important one? Most likely, so put them in the most reasonable order and create your **To Do** list.
In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia.
Anonymous
By arranging your business goals in a logical order needed to attain your ultimate end, you have roughly divided them into Short, Intermediate, and Long Term goals, which you can now refine to suit yourself. Your short-term goals might be each days **To Do** list, or each weeks.
What? You dont keep such lists? How do you stay organized and focused? Tiger Woods didnt become a golfing legend while still in his 20s by working on his putting one day, playing tennis the next, and baseball the day after. Were not talking about locking yourself into a **straightjacket of achievement**, but of your making the best use of your time and efforts toward claiming the ultimate prize - your personal version of success. Your intermediate goals may be six months or a year away; long term may be one year, might be five.
After organizing your goals into, in effect, a time line (short, intermediate and long term), youre ready to create your Action Plan. My what? Hey! Were just talking about goals here and now youre....Relax! You put your goals in writing not just to organize them, but because doing so is an act of personal commitment: those are your goals and you are the person who will achieve them. Not by chance, but by design.
The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them. Even the most tedious chore will become endurable as you parade through each day convinced that every task, no matter how menial or boring, brings you closer to fulfilling your dreams.
Og Mandino
Keeping **To Do** lists also affords you the enormous satisfaction of crossing things out as you accomplish them. Everybody needs encouragement and motivation, and one easy way to get them is to draw a big, bold line through an item on your list of tasks.
Your Action Plan is nothing more than the things you need to do, in logical order, to realize each goal. Its your road map to success. Your goals, your plan, your success - about the only thing holding you back is inertia. So get rolling!
About the Author
Copyright (c) 2000 Kent E. Butler/Butler Marketing Group
Kent Butler is editor and publisher of Home Based Journal, a free ezine dedicated to the home-based entrepreneur. HBJ addresses a wide range of pertinent topics, from marketing to home offices, from time management to family issues. To subscribe and contact see details below.
Subscribe@egroups.com
http://www.butlermarketinggroup.com
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