Are you happy with everything you have right now?<\/p>\n
If so, stop reading this and head elsewhere.<\/p>\n
If not, read on.<\/p>\n
The following steps will help if you want to be successful in business and\/or your personal life:<\/p>\n
Sounds easy, doesn\u2019t it? I guess most of us <\/span>know what we need to do. But we don\u2019t do it. The execution is a different thing.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve worked out some steps that help me get what I need to get done about 95% of the time (I\u2019m human after all).<\/p>\n Let me break them down.<\/p>\n Having goals<\/strong>: There are hundreds, if not thousands of books, covering how to define a goal and check that it\u2019s something meaningful, specific and achievable.<\/p>\n So, sure, it\u2019s worth dreaming that you want to have a million dollars in the bank, even if you\u2019re $50,000 in debt now. You\u2019re entitled.<\/p>\n But even if you have that big goal, you probably don\u2019t have the steps to reach it.<\/p>\n So while every other motivational \u201cguru\u201d tells you to \u201cdream big\u201d and \u201cmanifest your destiny\u201d, I feel that a lot of it is rubbish.<\/p>\n Sure, some of it may work, if you keep thinking about a whole bunch of stuff every day, a proportion of it is sure to come true because of sheer luck. But most of it won\u2019t. If you do nothing, you get nothing. No amount of happy thoughts can change that.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re dreaming big, thinking big but not grinding big to make it a reality, all those dreams will turn out to be an impossible mountain to climb. Can anyone blame you for getting demotivated? If dreaming about your goals made them reality, maybe you should go around marketing yourself as a genie and making people\u2019s dreams come true.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re in the real world, it takes more effort to make big dreams into reality. Let\u2019s start with setting goals.<\/p>\n What works for me is to have a big macro goal \u2013 say to grow my business to $10 million a year and leave $500,000 for each of my two kids in a trust fund by December 31, 2019 \u2013 and look at it constantly. That\u2019s my end goal or destination goal.<\/p>\n It also helps to have multiple smaller milestone goals \u2013 stuff I can achieve in this month (End August), by the end of the quarter (End September), by the end of the year (December) and within a year (December 2015).<\/p>\n I have this stuff in a Google Doc so I can refer to it from whichever computer I\u2019m working on and I can also access it on my phone. Looking at it, keeping your eye on the end zone is what can drive you to get stuff done. To be contantly moving forward. It may mean the difference between getting some work done during my downtime while waiting to pick the kids from school. Having no goals may mean I goof off instead.<\/p>\n Which leads to the next point.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Having a way to reach those goals<\/strong>: Just dreaming about something, posting Facebook or Twitter updates about it doesn\u2019t mean that you will get it done.<\/p>\n If wishing or dreaming about something made it come true, we\u2019d all be happy, wealthy and contented. But, that\u2019s simply not true.<\/p>\n So once you have a goal, the next step is to work out concrete steps to make it a reality.<\/p>\n When I was more active as an affiliate, I had spreadsheets where I listed the payout per offer, the number of leads I needed to generate, the amount I had budgeted for traffic. This gave me a rough idea how much income an offer could potentially generate before I spent the first cent.<\/p>\n Since the offer payout data is already available on the affiliate network, the traffic cost is listed on the ad network\u2019s self-serve or insertion order, the only moving variables are how much you\u2019re willing to pay for traffic and the number of leads you\u2019re shooting for. With the formulas worked into Google Doc spreadsheet cells, you can adjust variables till you find a model that works for you. If needed, having multiple instances of your formulas allow you to test the viability and scalability of a high payout, low volume finance offer versus the returns of a low payout, high volume download offer. It\u2019s not rocket science, but merely a matter of doing your homework before you get started.<\/p>\n The next step once you have a roadmap is getting down to working out the specific steps to getting what you want to achieve.<\/p>\n I had a daily task list of three goal-oriented tasks I needed to get done by the end of the day to make sure I made progress. Getting the three things done gave me a concrete way to measure the progress I\u2019m making and a rough idea how close or far I am from my goal. I still use the same system in my consulting work and in my own projects now.<\/p>\n Ok, I get that some of you may hate structure, finding it restrictive and may instead choose to do whatever is the most urgent at that point in time, so it might be getting customers, or working on the product or service more, or doing research, or reading.While this may work for a while and seem as productive as a stuctured approach, in the long run, you may lose sight of your goal (or no goal, cos you don\u2019t have one\u2026) I\u2019ve been there and done that.<\/p>\n What works for me now is spending 6-8 hours a day working on your core goal and having a flexible 1-2 hours to take care of unexpected stuff. Try it and see if it works for you.<\/p>\n If you have a defined goal for what you\u2019re going to do during that 2 hours in Starbucks and you get it done, you\u2019ll have a greater sense of achievement and be more motivated to get the next thing done.<\/p>\n One tenet about motivation is if you set yourself a series of small goals and get them done, you\u2019ll have a concrete way of measuring your progress and know that you are moving somewhere. In gaming\/gammification times, you\u2019re unlocking \u201cachievements\u201d, even though you haven\u2019t levelled up yet (achieved your core goal).<\/p>\n Keeping yourself accountable is also a big part of making sure you\u2019re on the right track and moving on the right path. That\u2019s one of the reasons why I have challenges like the Kindle writing challenge<\/a> (still ongoing) where I put $6,000 on the line.<\/p>\n They say that the thought of losing $1 is a much stronger motivated than the thought of making $1, ie: the fear of losing something far outweighs the thought of gaining something. So this is one of the drivers I use to get my goals completed. I hear that a lot of people are trying to overcome procrastination, have difficulty focusing on important stuff. If you have a game plan in place, you\u2019re putting skin in the game and putting in a pain point (ie: financial pain) to make sure stuff gets done, then you will mysteriously see unproductive time spent on Facebook, YouTube and maybe TMZ\/RadarOnline melt away.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Reaching your goals<\/strong>:\u00a0 So you have defined what you want, you know what you need to do, but how do you get it done?<\/p>\n Getting motivated to get something done is a major stumbling block for many. Do you know?<\/p>\n On an rational and intellectual level we know what\u2019s good for us (passing on the hot fudge sundae, getting an hour\u2019s worth of exercise every day, putting a consistent 2 hours each day into writing the book), but we are swayed on an emotional level \u2013 procrastinating the task will help us avoid pain, pushing it till tomorrow means we can go to bed earlier, spend time on a fun project, etc.<\/p>\n All that stuff will set up an unhealthy pattern, a habit which will sabotage your core goal.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not completely your fault. These patterns could have developed because you had a job where you did 6 hours of work each day then had 2 hours to mess around on other stuff. While that works while you are a salaried employee, it doesn\u2019t work as well when you\u2019re working on your own project or working on bringing your business to the next level.<\/p>\n