What differentiates the person who dreams and the person who accomplishes their dreams? What is the secret sauce to achieving things you never thought you could?
For years, the same tactics have been used. They’ve been called different things and taught in different ways, but they yield the same result: Achievement.
I first discovered goal setting when I was young. I grew up with my dad leading annual goal setting retreats for our family. At the beginning of each year, we would reflect on the last year’s goals and create goals for the next year. To this day, we still do this as a family. Little did I realize at the age of 10 that this would become one of the most valuable tools I would ever have.
Why is goal setting so powerful? Goal setting gives you the ability to take a dream that seems larger than life and break it down into little steps that allow you to achieve that big dream one step at a time. One of the main things that stops us from doing big things is because we don’t even know where to start. As a result, we end up getting so overwhelmed that we don’t start at all.
In my book, Dear Millennial, a large portion of the content and story is about goal setting. But I wanted to break it down into an article format that is easily digestible.
Goals are like an upside-down pyramid. You start at the top with your sphere and big objective (that big goal or dream that seems larger than life) and then you continue to break that down, block after block until you turn that big dream into bite size pieces that you can chip away at each day.
For the sake of clarity on how to goal set, let me share with you the example that I have in Dear Millennial. Ironically, my “larger than life” goal was writing a book. That being so, I used writing a book as my goal (or what I call life compass) example.
I never thought it was possible for me to write a book, let alone in 4 months from coming up with the concept to a full-blown launch. That was on top of running my businesses. I use this example because it takes away every excuse. You will never have time to make your dreams happen, you have to create the time. And in order to create time, you have to have a plan and goal set.
HOW TO GOAL SET:
Sphere: Define your sphere and what it specifically means to you. A sphere is each major component of your life.
Example: My first book
Overall objective of that sphere: Summarize your overall goal of that sphere using a sentence or two. I like to use present tense when doing this because then it feels like the objective is already happening.
Example: I will have my first book published the week of September 26, 2017. Through the book, resources, and processes that come from it, I am establishing authority as a young entrepreneur and inspiring and empowering the younger generation to live in extreme freedom and complete life balance through the platform of being a young entrepreneur and Christ follower.
Yearly Goals: Take your overall objective of that sphere and break that down into bullet points of specific SMART goals that need to happen that year for that overall objective to be accomplished.
It’s very important that these goals are SMART goals so that there are no loopholes.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.
Example:
- Publish book by September 26, 2017.
- Have 5 cold lead documents for exercises throughout book
- Over 10,000 copies of book sold within a year of publishing
- Have book reach Amazon best seller status in two categories
- Get over 100 positive reviews on Amazon within first year
- To be generating $$$ a month from book sales
- Grow email list to 5,000
- Have a process/program people can purchase through book (convert readers into customers)
Monthly Goals: These are your yearly goals broken down into what you need to accomplish month by month.
Example:
- Finish writing rough draft of book
- Hire an editor
- Research how to create an audiobook
- Research how to create pdf book
- Create two of the cold lead documents
Weekly Goals: Go through each of your monthly goals and break them down into your week.
Example:
- Write three chapters for rough draft
- Publish an ad for editors on Upwork
- Ask 3 people who’ve created an audiobook how they did it
- Research pros and cons of pdf book vs print
- Create one cold lead document
From here, I recommend you take your weekly goals and also break them down into daily goals. I always plan out my day in massive detail the night before.
BONUS: Time-Blocking:
If you’re super list oriented like me, you’ll take those daily goals and organize them into a time-blocked timeline for that day. Time-blocking is a simple system I use each day to insure that I stay on track with what I need to accomplish for that day. I’m sure you’ve heard the concept of a task expanding to the time you allot to it. Well, I’ve tested that out multiple times and it’s true. If you want more information on how to timeblock, I recorded a whole episode on it for Entrepreneur Before 25!
And there you have it! That is how you take your larger than life dream and make it a reality. I’ve tested this system more times than I can count and so have hundreds of other people. Challenge yourself and give it a try. You will be floored by the results!
