Make Sure You Get The Right Map - Goal Setting

So now you have the vehicle, you have fuel in your tank and now you need a map because GPS will not get you where you are going. Think about this for a moment. You have a car (your business), you have your fuel (your why) and you have your destination (your dream lifestyle). What is missing? Well, you need directions which are usually found on a map, but no map has the directions you need.

Your map is in the form of your goals. Goal setting is key to moving your business in the right direction. What happens to our car when we are lost and refuse to get proper directions? We eventually run out of fuel. This will happen to you as well in your business no matter how big your “WHY” is and how cool your destination “Dream Lifestyle” sounds if you do not have a clear map “Goals” to get you there.

100% of the people that tell me they do not need goals or to write their goals down are the ones I know will be in the 97% group that fails in this industry. Without goals, you have no clue not only if you are heading in the right direction or not, but also to know if you might need to find a better route.

For example, you may have set a goal to spend $50 on marketing each week, but now you have noticed your income has increased and you can add $20 more to your budget. So, you go back and adjust your goals accordingly. Remember, your goals are to be written down, just not written in stone! Your goals need to be flexible, but not to the point of easy to accomplish. They need to push you, challenge you and inspire you. Many people that write down their goals write down soft goals or easily attainable goals that offer no real value to the journey.

Also, each goal should feed into the next one. For example, if you set a goal to wake up 30 minutes early each day, why? What is the secondary goal/benefit? To walk 20 minutes, read a book, etc. And the best way to goal set is to start with your yearly goals, then work your way in reverse to get your monthly goals, then your weekly goals and then your daily goals. If you start your goals with your daily goals, then you do not really know where your goals are heading.

But if you start with the end in mind, you can always work your way back. Watch how I do it with a goal of weighing 265 pounds at the end of 12 months. Let us say I currently weight 353 pounds, I know with a little simple math I want to lose 88 pounds in the next 12 months. My annual end goal is 88 pounds. I know I have 12 months to do this, so I divide 88 by 12, and I get a monthly goal of 7.33 pounds a month. I know the average month has 4 weeks so I can divide the 7.33 by 4 to get a weekly goal of 1.8 pounds each week. We will stop here on this example, but most goals should be drilled down into daily goals. But when you think about losing weight losing 88 pounds sounds like a daunting task. However, losing 7.33 pounds a month sounds better and you start to believe you can lose a measly 1.8 pounds each week. Let us do it with money now, something we can drill down to daily.

Okay, so let us say you have a year-end goal to increase your savings account by $10,000.00. Right now, you think, “Wow $10,000 yea right.” But we are going to do it anyway. Unlike our government, children, and some adults we know that to increase our savings account we have to either increase our income or decrease our expenses and, in some cases, we may have to do both to reach our financial goals. I recommend both personally. But for this example, we will just increase your income. We know that $10,000.00 is the 12-month goal to add to your savings account.

Take $10,000 divided by 12 and you get your monthly goal of $834. Again, we know the average month has 4 weeks, so we divide $834 by 4 to get our weekly goal of $208.25 each week. Lastly, we know there are 7 days in a week, so we take $208.25 divided by 7 to get our daily goal of $30 each day. Wow, I think I just shocked myself realizing how much I spend daily on eating out, drinks and other things I can probably do without. What I would recommend doing is breaking your goal setting down to include these 5 areas of life.

You can include more but do not overwhelm yourself to start if you are not used to goal setting. Because each of these groups will have mini goals that make up the main goal in each group. I will give you an example below:

1. Spiritual Goal – This might include mini goals like reading the bible daily, praying daily, praying with family, etc. these are mini goals within your main goal. If you are not spiritual, then something else that enables you to recharge.

2. Family Goal – This might include mini goals like family night, date night and other activities that strengthen your family bond.

3. Health Goal – Might include running, losing weight, working out at the gym, walking, biking, preparing for a marathon or triathlon.

4. Financial Goal – Increase savings and checking by certain amount, increase retirement accounts, give more to charities, college funds, etc. 42

5. Business Goal – go from part-time to full-time, grow team from 0 to 2,000. These are all just examples of main goals and then mini goals that feed into them.

Now the last piece of the goal setting puzzle and why I said earlier to not write the goals in stone so you can have flexibility is the flex goal setting method. As far as I know I am the only one teaching this, but that does not mean that a thousand-other people are not. It just means I have not personally found anyone to date that uses my flex method.

Goals obviously must be adjusted because life happens. Things you can’t control and probably a few things you could have controlled but didn’t. As opposed to spending countless time updating all your daily goals, weekly, goals and so on because life happens, I recommend implementing my flex goal system. The basic premise behind the flex goal system is you start by answering two questions. 1. What is my actual goal? 2. What is my absolute bottom goal I will take and still feel I accomplished something of value? If you want to increase your savings by $10,000 this year, what is the absolute minimum? Think of it this way, if you give a 100% of your efforts to reach a goal of $10,000 are you willing to settle for an 80% or $8,000 accomplishment? Listen, be realistic because life happens. 

Cars need repairs, kids get sick, and other emergencies happen. You always need to factor in life events, but not excuses. This is why the flex goal system is so important. Now you know how to design your roadmap to end at your destination! Are you already thinking about your personal goals? Take a sheet of paper and begin to write them down. I recommend a goal book (notebook). You write them down and the person that gave you this book is going to follow up to give you the vehicle to achieve them!