Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

I hope you have enjoyed the last post and had a better understanding of:

- How simple a goal can be
- How simple it really is to apply goal setting in our daily life
- The benefits of having a goal as opposed to not having one

Do You Have Have A Goal?
I probably don’t know most of you and I have no idea what you went through in your life. Certainly, I have no idea if you had ever set any goals in your life.

My Hamster Has One
But I say if my pet hamster has a goal (that I could see), you probably have one too! Let me show you his goal:

That’s Hammie, Stella’s Pet.

Hammie’s Home Sweet Home

Hammie’s Goal
You can guess what Hammie’s goal really is. No prizes here, he belongs to the rodent family so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Hammie’s Daily Focus

Hammie’s Goal Achieved
Anthony Robbin said that we are either motivated by Pain or Pleasure. Hammie obviously knew how painful it would be for me to replace the cage. So here’s mine solution (He stopped widening the hole after I got him this):

Hammie’s Goal Achieved

What About You
Don’t get me wrong! I’m not asking you to inflict pain on someone to achieve your goals. That’s not right!

But tell me, do you have a goal? And have you done anything about it?

Cheers,
James

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Hey Folks,

Todays post is very interesting. It involves practical goal setting, application of plans/strategies and the mindset to be successful, all applied in a simple game. So sit back, relax and read on.

Yesterday was family day and our family dropped by one of our favorite weekend entertainment center, Downtown East. After a morning of fun and a sumptuous lunch of Sushi, we went to the arcade.

Here’s What Happened

At the arcade, we saw this contraption where you get to scoop some sweets to fill out a moving table. Then the sweets will get push off the moving table and fall into a collecting tray. Whatever in the tray is your prize. Piece of cake, right?

But would you pay a dollar to grab a couple of sweets you probably could have bought at a convenience stall for much less? Probably Not!

But from what I observed, that’s what most people do. Right there before my eyes. They pop a few coins (by the way, it was S$1 per game), scoop a few sweets, deposit them on the table and grab a few sweets and they stop.

Most of them stare at the Jackpot prize (The little stuff toy at the top of the machine) and wonder if anyone could get it!

We played this once, spent S$10 for a bag of sweets so I had some idea how it works. This time round, I set a goal. I wanted to get that Jackpot prize for my little girl. So this is how I plan it.

I started off with a goal to win the Jackpot prize.

To win the Jackpot prize, I need a plan to fill up the jackpot counter (Picture to the left) by hitting the checker (Bottom Picture, the little RED tab extending out from the table is the checker) with sweets.

I also plan to scoop the larger sweets, thinking that since they are big, they could probably move more sweets down the table. Now I have a goal and a plan, time to take some action.

I changed S$10 worth of coins which translated to 12 scoops of the sweets. Actually, I am not sure how many tries it would take to win the jackpot, so I test and measure.

First couple of tries was a mixed of success and disaster.

Disaster - Attempting to scoop a large amount of larger sweets, usually end up with an empty scoop. I realized that the scoop was a flexible plastic, it flexed and bend under load and bounces its load of sweet all over the place.

Success - Attempting to scoop just 2-3 packets of larger sweets went well and it dropped loads of sweets into the collecting tray. So now, I changed my tactics and aim for smaller load.

Be Focus

Remember that we mentioned that to win the Jackpot prize, you need to focus on hitting the checker and move the counter.

That was what we focused on all the way. It does not matter how many sweets was dropped, if it didn’t hit the checker, it didn’t count towards our goal.

I noticed that many players from the other stations focus on trying to drop the Maximum number of sweets. I am not sure if getting the most sweet was their aim or not but if their goal was the Jackpot, then their action and goal is not in alignment.

Never Give Up

After the initial 12 tries, we were closer to the Jackpot but not close enough. So do we give up or do we push on? Of course, we pushed on! Giving up is as good as wasting all the effort that you have put in so far, all the experience you gain also goes down the drain.

The time, effort and money I estimated at the beginning is just an approximation, now that I had a baseline, I could determine how much more effort the whole project would take. I estimated another S$10 would do it. So we pushed on, focus and just did it.

At the end, it took exactly 2 more try then I had expected but we did win the Jackpot prize. Check out the prize, blue doggy soft toy and the HUGE bag of sweets! And of course, a very happy little girl!

Inspirations

The most amazing thing wasn’t our winning the Jackpot. What was amazing was what happens because we won. Our little game attracted a crowd around us and the cheer went up after we hit the Jackpot. More amazingly, all the other stations were filled with players who is now inspired to be the next Jackpot winner!

Our energy built up while charging towards our goal was transfer to the audience around us and inspired them to take action. That was amazing and we are talking of a simple game here. Think of what you could inspire if you achieve that goal in your life or at work?

Here’s one last picture of Stella and yours truly. Enjoy your weekend.

Cheers,
James

Afterword: What I have just shown is some very basic stuffs used in goal setting and it can be applied to everyday task as simple as playing a game. If you want a system that can help you with goal setting, check out The Ladder Of Dreams on the left side bar.

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Focus On Market Research
Market Research is usually done at the beginning of a marketing life cycle where you decide which market or industry you would like your business to focus on. Or it could be done when you are identifying new products or sub-niches to add to your current niche or marketing segment.

Keyword researches, analysis of competitors, marketing plans and strategies to penetrate a market should be a focus here. But don’t dwell on it too long as opportunities come and goes. Once you have identified what you want, plan and execute it.

Focus On Site Design
Site Design is usually a focus before you launch a site/blog but it should not stop there. Continuous improvement is a necessity in fine tuning your site/blog to make it easy for readers to subscribe your RSS, comment on your articles and opt in to your mailing list.

A Good site design makes reading visiting your site/blog a pleasant experience where advertisements are merged seamlessly into or around your content and archived articles are easy to find. It will also encourage readers to help you drive your traffic by sharing your articles through Web 2.0 buttons/link and convert readers to clients.

Focus On Content Creation
Every person has a wealth of content to share. You may think that what you know has already been shared but I can promise you that your perspective has not been shared before. It’s yours and it’s unique and that’s what your readers want to know. When they like your style and perspective, that’s when you convert them from visitors to readers.

If you think you have no content to share, then surf the web and read up on contents! Once you find contents related to your niche, track back to that article and give your views on it. Never copy and paste, unless you get express permission to do so.

So who says you have no content? Your views and perspective are your unique content!

Focus On Tracking Results
In order to know if you have done something right and to allow you to focus on what brings you the best results, you will need to test and measure. In Online business terms, it means tracking your traffic source and sales conversion. If you know where you are getting results from, you can tune your marketing activities to drive maximum results with the least effort.

Tracking Results does not take a lot of time, just set things up at the beginning and monitor it once a day follow by an analysis of the results once a week. Fine tune or discard activities that bring little or no results, focus more time and effort on activities that gives the best result or add new activities and track the performance.

Focus On Driving Traffic
Driving Traffic must be the most talk about topic in any online business. Every single site/blog that talks about internet marketing, online business or making money online will have a whole section (if not all the content) on this topic alone. So what I’ll highlight here is this, Driving Traffic is just the beginning. You will also need to focus on the next 2 items below to make driving those traffic worth it’s while.

Focus On Traffic Retention
So you have a good niche, a fantastically designed site, added great content and drove a ton of traffic. What if you did not retain them? You start from ground zero again the next day. Kind of lame right? This is exactly the case where many sites/blogs have stagnant growth - traffic surge at the beginning and then levels off, never to grow again.

What’s lacking here is the lack of a Traffic Retention policy. Offering a weekly/monthly ezine, offering full feed RSS, hosting a forum for discussion, interacting with readers that comment are some strategies to retain your traffic. Focus on these and you will build up your traffic to new heights over time.

Focus On Selling
It does not matter if you are selling a product, service or information. It does not matter if you are canvassing for a cause or charity. It does not matter if you are promoting a way of life or belief. It is all marketing and the end result is that you need to sell something.

Selling a product, service, information requires the same process as selling an idea, belief or donation. And unless you learn how to sell effectively, one of your main objective of your site/blog will not be met. So the focus you need here is a call to action.

Focus On SEO
If you have configured a self hosted wordpress blog properly, you are pretty optimized for SEO already. What you need to focus on is to optimized your headlines and articles with keywords and key phrases to attract more organic traffics. If you are not on a self hosted wordpress, it’s time you think about it.

How To Focus
If you are now suffering from information over load or at a lost about what to focus on, you need some help. On the left side bar, there is a free tool known as The Ladder Of Dreams. It has been proven to help online entrepreneurs set a clear path to their goals and keep them tightly focused on the critical activities they need to take action upon to achieve success.

Go ahead and download it, it’s FREE.

Cheers
James

Disclaimer: This post is not intended to teach internet marketing or how do you carry out an online business. It does highlight the crucial areas that an online business should focus on and some activities which are commonly neglected by internet marketers and online entrepreneurs.

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