Making your goals dreams and aspirations a reality

“Why do you want to succeed?

A probable answer is FREEDOM

So what does having freedom mean to you?

• Work for yourself and avoid having to work for anyone else ever again.
• Giving back to your community
• Work less and “play” more.
• Spend more time with your family.
• Help other people live better.
• Travel more.

All of these are great reasons and, of course, they just scratch the surface.

Identifying the reasons why you want to succeed is a critically important activity.  Because as American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker the late Jim Rohn often said the only real reason more people don’t succeed is because they don’t have enough reasons why.

But is having a good list all it takes?

I have observed that sometimes people do indeed have a good list of reasons, yet they still struggle to succeed. So why is this?

It certainly can’t be attributed to lack of opportunity. Look around and you’ll see and read about people reaching extraordinary wealth and success with ordinary ideas and every type of profession.

It’s not because there aren’t tools to help. There are proven resources out there

And it’s not because there is no one to show the way. Coaches, mentors and training providers who are readily available to help with that.

So what’s the answer to this riddle? Before I tell you, there are a couple of things you need to have in place.

First of all, you must define exactly what success is to you. Because if you don’t know what success looks like then how can you expect to achieve it?

So take out your notepad or get in front of your computer and begin to write a detailed picture of what success looks like to you.

And I’m not just talking about how much you’ll earn. Get detailed about how many hours you want to work each day and how many days you want to work each year.

Then go into detail describing what exactly success looks like to you.

For example, if giving back is part of your vision, how do you see your role?  What charity or organisation will you donate your time and money to?  How many hours a week and how much money?  And so on.

If you want to travel more, how many days a year will you travel? Will you work while traveling or will you step away from your business with no communication for days at a time? Will you stay in five diamond resorts or is camping more your style?

You must define exactly what these things look like so that you know what you need to do to get there.

Second you must reach peak personal productivity. To do this you must define what peak personal productivity looks like and have enough reasons why achieving it is important to you.

You could use this definition productivity is “the deliberate, strategic investment of your time, talent, intelligence, energy, resources, and opportunities in a manner calculated to move you measurably closer to meaningful goals.”

Once you have those in place, you are ready for the real trick and that is to link “your reasons why” to your goals.  

To achieve your goals, you have to maximize your productivity. And to do this “You have to fight to link everything you do (and choose not to do) to your goals.”

In other words, you must measure everything you do against your goals.

Is the time you are spending doing something (or not doing something) moving you closer to your goals or further away?

For example, if you choose to check email, Facebook, and phone messages multiple times throughout the day, will that move you closer to your goal or could it be that the multiple distractions are making you less productive and keeping you from reaching your goals?

Linking “your reasons why” to your goals will give you clarity, help you make better decisions and accelerate your progress.

Sometimes we have to make the decision to say “no” to certain types of projects with clients that are requiring an enormous amount of attention yet the pay is much smaller than other projects. Realising that this is not moving you closer to your  goals, you could decide to move your focus towards projects that are more in align with your expectations.

By clearly defining your reasons why and your goals and linking everything you do to them, you will have a very simple formula for determining if you are; a) being productive and b) consistently moving closer to your goals.

Tri-Coaching Partnership Ltd help ADIs with their goal setting and achieving contact us on 0800 058 8009 or email info@tri-coachingpartnership.co.uk or just visit our website www.tri-coachingpartnership.co.uk and register with us for information, advice and when and where our courses are.

This has been adapted by Graham Hooper from an email received from Dave Dee an american entrepreneur.