Why setting goals is so important: a crash course

This post is an example of the content I share every Friday in my Living by Experience Magazine. If you’d like your free copy, just click here.

To state it bluntly, which I often do: You’re either growing or you’re dying. And to grow, you need to have some goals: some sense of direction or destination that specifies where you want to be. If you don’t already, I strongly suggest writing down and tracking monthly goals for yourself and your business. If you simply write down your goals it’s proven you improve your chances to attain those goals. Be specific about what you want and by when you want to accomplish it.

Some example goals you can set are:

• I will easily launch my new ecommerce website by end of this month
• I will easily go to the gym at least 3 times this month
• I will easily get 10 sales to my store by the end of this month
• I will easily double my store’s weekly traffic, from 100 visitors to 200 visitors, by the last business day of the month

Some people suggest making weekly or even daily goals, but to me those are just to-do lists. Goals need to be big and preferably even a little audacious. Writing your goals down helps keep you accountable and brings you clarity. How do you really know what you want to accomplish in life and in your business if you’re not tracking what that is?

If time and money were not an issue what would be your goal? What would your goal look like to you, and what would it allow you to do? It’s important to be clear on why you want something in life. We’re so used to doing things without fully understanding why. Your boss might tell you to do something that you don’t understand, but you do it anyway. Setting a goal is the what, but before you figure out the how of getting there you’ll need to be clear on the why.

A lot of people tell me their goal is to travel more. So I wrote a book on that to help you get there, possibly even for free using my proven travel hacking principles. But when you set travel as your goal, that goal in itself isn’t strong enough. You have to make the picture more clear in your mind. What does it look like, where would you go and who would you go with?

Without a plan in place you won’t get there. And that takes time, effort and dedication. You’ll have to find some available time to work on something every day that gets you a little closer to your goal. Go through every day in your calendar, and block off some available time to work on something you love. Many people tell me they have no time, but we have to stop the glorification of being busy. Ask yourself if there is anything in your schedule right now that is not serving your life or your goals. For example, if you want to lose some weight, you’ll have to find the time to do the work. You have to do your own pushups, you cannot hire someone to do your pushups for you.

Are you ready to set some goals and find more happiness? Join the Freedom Project – buy one (or all) of The Freedom Project books and join the online program!

P.S. Questions, comments, compliments? Text me: 604-210-8668. I’d love to hear from you.

If this post helped you, please consider buying one of my books, or checking out a more in-depth course on one of the topics I talk about. Thanks! 🙂