The Most Important Success Tool – Pen and Paper
Seven Steps to Achieving Goals
In order to be truly successful one must not only be future oriented, thinking about what is wanted in the future, but also goal oriented. This means that one must be precise in what it is wanted for the future.
Only three percent of adults actually have written goals. These 3% are the people the other 97% work for and wish they could be like. So the first step to true success should be deciding what one really wants and writing it down!
Find Clarity When Pondering Goals
Get out a pen and paper and start writing down all of the things that one would like to accomplish. What are the biggest dreams, hopes and aspirations? Where does one see oneself in five years, if everything was perfect in life?
Do this exercise for each area of life: work/career, family, hobbies and recreation, health and spirituality. Find out what is most important in each area and write it down.
Set Measurable Goals
Once these goals are written down, look at each of them and make them measurable. There is no way to know if a goal has been reached if it cannot be measured. It must be very clearly and specifically written down.
Perhaps most importantly, there must be a way to measure a goal; whether it is making X dollars per year or spending umpteen hours with family, every goal must make be measurable.
Setting a Deadline for Goals
If one has wonderful goals, even measurable, but does not have a deadline, then there is no motivation to accomplish it. Procrastination is the enemy; deadlines give a reason not to put things off. It’s true that the subconscious mind thrives on time-specific goals. Use this natural affinity for time-specific goals to as an advantage.
Listing the Activities to Accomplish Goals
Once all of the goals and the deadlines to attain them are written down, one needs to make a list of all of the activities and tasks needed to do in order to actually accomplish those goals.
Goals are action oriented. That is why they need to be measurable and have deadlines. And all successful people realise that success requires action. What tasks must be acted upon in order to reach these written goals?
Make a Plan to Accomplish Goals
One now has the goals, measure, deadlines, and activities. Next is to organize those activities into a workable plan. Decide each part of the plan that needs to happen before other tasks and activities can be accomplished.
This is where one fleshes out everything and makes it workable. Plans require action. And to accomplish specific tasks, each action may need to be planned one-by-one. This is the first task to reach success!
Take Action Toward Those Goals
The plan has already started one on the road to success. The next step is to implement that plan and take action on the tasks that are on there. Do something, anything, to get going!
Many people get a plan, then completely ignore it and never take action – don’t be one of them.
Resolve to Reach the Goal
One has to do some part of the plan every day in order to reach those castles in the sky. Whatever action is taken, do it every day, however small, and those goals will be reached! It is this discipline of action that truly gives a person the resolve and fortitude to develop momentum and achieve the goals that one desires to reach. This little bit can be the most important part of the entire plan.
Once this is all in place think about the plan in everything that is done. Think about it when getting up in the morning, throughout the day, and before going to sleep at night. Look at the written goals every day. Look at the whole written plan. Now one may always ask, “How?” How can these goals be acheived? How can the plan be improved? How can each task be completed?"
Worry about whether it can be done or not will fade away, only how it will be done wil remain. Remember each person is the master of his own destiny.
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