I was giving a talk last week to 30 young people who were part of a Prince’s Trust initiative. They were all wannabe entrepreneurs. They all had big dreams but when I started to probe and question them, it became increasingly clear that none of them had a clear vision of what they wanted to do or where they wanted to be.
Many of you will have heard me talk about how, when I set up my own business and left paid employment at the very beginning of 2003, the deal I had with Sue was that I had to earn £100,000 (profit, not turnover) in my first year. If I managed that then I would carry on running my own business – and our lifestyle would not diminish – but if I failed to get to that level then I would go and get another job (while I was still employable!).
Without a shadow of a doubt that specific measurable goal helped me hugely in the first 12 months of my entrepreneurial life and I want to probe this a bit more deeply with you this month. If you are able to articulate a similarly clear, specific, measurable goal then I believe that will help you significantly over the next 12 months.
For 10 years now, spurred on by the success and apparent ease with which I achieved my first goal in my first year, I have continued to adopt the same approach. I have specific measurable goals each and every year and what I’ve discovered is that whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it works night and day to achieve. But that goal has to be specific and measurable.
How much, by when?
To make sure a goal unleashes the power of your subconscious mind it must have two criteria. It must be stated in such a way that allows you and anybody else to measure it. For instance, “I will lose 10 pounds”, is not as powerful as “I will weigh 185 pounds by 5.00 p.m. on June 30th.” The second is clearer because anybody can show up at five o’clock on June 30th and look at the readings on your scale. The two criteria here are how much and by when. With regards to your business, I would urge you to think in terms of profit and/or cash.
If you stick with your current vague goals then I promise that you will produce vague results.
Write it out in Detail
One of the best ways to get clarity and specificity on your goals is to write them out in detail. And I mean include every detail you possibly can. Back in 2003, mine was really very straightforward: “I need to move £100,000 from the company account into our personal account between the 1st February 2003 and 31st December 2003.” Bearing in mind, when I wrote that, I had no business, no customers, nothing at all other than a burning desire to be my own boss and run my own business, but I knew that I couldn’t do that unless I was able to provide for my family. A big part of the whole deal for me was that my life would be better as a result of working for myself and therefore my income had to get close to the salary that I had previously earned (which was more than £100K).
Create a Breakthrough Goal
Most people think of goals in terms of incremental improvements to their lives or business. They are little nudges forward on the board game of life. But what if you could catapult yourself 50 yards forward in one quantum leap? If your entire lifestyle and finances would change if you earned an extra £3,000 a month, wouldn’t you pursue every possible opportunity until you achieve that goal? That would be a good example of a breakthrough goal. Something that changes your life, that brings you new opportunities, that gets you in front of the right people and takes every activity, relationship or group that you’re involved in to a higher level.
One Goal is Not Enough
I’ve recently been reading about Lou Holtz who was a legendary football coach in America. His belief in goal setting comes from a lesson that he learned in 1966 when he was 28 years old and had just been hired as an assistant coach. His wife was eight months’ pregnant with their third child and they’d spent all their money on a down payment on a house. One month after he started his new job, the head coach who had hired him resigned and Lou was out of work. In an attempt to lift his spirits, his wife gave him a book ‘The Magic of Thinking Big’ by David Schwartz (we featured it in Nige’s Notes last year). The book says that you should write down all the goals you want to achieve in your life, so Lou sat down, turned his imagination loose and before he knew it, he’d listed 107 goals that he wanted to achieve before he died. They covered everything from having dinner at the White House, meeting the Pope, leading his team to the national championships, etc.
Take the time to make a list of all the goals you want to achieve in your life. Write them in vivid detail and every time you achieve one, tick it off.
It’s 10 years since I made my list of 101 goals and I’ve already achieved 68 of them.
Three Obstacles to Success
I’ve discovered that as soon as you set a goal, three things emerge that stop most people achieving them. But not you, eh. The three obstacles to success are considerations, fears and road blocks.
Think about it. As soon as you say you want to double your income next year, within seconds, considerations such as “I’ll have to work twice as hard” or “I won’t have time for my family” or “my wife’s going to kill me” begin to emerge. These are all considerations – the reasons why you shouldn’t attempt the goal. They’re all the reasons why it’s impossible.
But surfacing these considerations is a good thing. They are how you have been subconsciously stopping yourself all along. Once you bring them to the fore you can deal with them, confront them and move past them.
Fears, on the other hand, are feelings. It might be a fear of rejection, a fear of failure or a fear of making a fool of yourself. Again, these are just part of the process. Everyone has them. Every successful business owner, I promise you, has sat there, in cold sweats, often in the dark of night, worrying and wondering, wracked by self-doubt. You’re not on your own.
The third obstacle is the road blocks. These are the external circumstances beyond the thoughts and feelings in your head. A road block might be that you don’t have all the cash you need to move forward, for instance.
Unfortunately, when these considerations, fears and road blocks come up, most people see them as a stop sign. I’m telling you that they are not a stop sign. They are a normal part of the process towards success. If you’re having some work done on your house, you resign yourself to a little dust, disturbance and inconvenience as part of the price that you have to pay. You learn to deal with it. The same is true of considerations, fears and road blocks. You just learn to deal with them.
Oh, and if you don’t have any of these three obstacles then it means that you haven’t set a goal that’s big enough to stretch and grow you. It means there’s no real potential for self-development.
That’s why I try really hard to welcome the considerations, fears and road blocks when they appear in my life because often they’ve been the very things that have been holding me back.
Do it Now
I know this has been a rather different opening article to this month’s Circular, but I’d like to encourage you to stop reading this magazine now. Put it down, and instead, make a list of the goals you want to accomplish.
Make sure you have measurable (how much, by when) goals for what you want to achieve in your business.
Decide on a breakthrough goal. Write it on the back of a business card. and put it in your wallet. Then create a list of the 101 goals you want to achieve before you die.
Think of it this way: if you are clear where you’re going (goals) and you take several steps in that direction every day, then eventually you have to get there. Decide what you want, write it down, review it constantly and each day do something that moves you towards those goals.
That’s how you make your boat go faster.
Have a great month.
