Visualized.Feel.Abundance

Hey Folks,

Welcome to Goal Setting Lesson Two. I will be covering some basic, time-tested goal setting techniques here so you can write down your first goal clearly.

SMART
It is general accepted that goals need to be SMART. So what does SMART mean? It’s actually an acronym for:

Specific
A goal has to be specific so you know the direction you are heading towards.

“I want to grow my business” is a loosely defined goal. Which part of your business do you want grow? The revenue? The profit? The size of the company? It has to be specific.

A specific goal should sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business“. Now you know clearly which part of your business to focus on growing. No more ambiguity, right?

Measurable
A goal has to be measurable so you know the distance you need to cover to reach your goal.

“I want grow the revenue of my business” could not be measured. How much of the revenue do you want to grow? 5%? 10%? 100%? One thing for sure is that you will never know when you have grown sufficiently and you will never know exactly when you have reached your goal.

A measurable goal should sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business by 20%“. Now you know which part of your business to focus on growing and how much you want it to grow .

Attainable
A goal has to be attainable with your current resources at hand, level of competency or state of being to handle that given goal. In another words, do you have the physical means and resources to achieve the goal you set.

“I want our new advertisement to attract 10,000 customers a day” might be attainable by a business with a big budget to advertise on TV, Radio, does branding and the like. But will the same goal be attainable for a neighborhood convenience stall that only have a budget to distribute pamphlets only?

Knowing all your physical means and resources you have at hand will help you set attainable goals.

Realistic
A goal has to be realistic. Where attainable relates to your physical means and resources. Realistic relates more to conditions and circumstances surrounding us.

“I want to grow the revenue of my business by 500%” might be realistic for a new business in it’s expansion/growing phase in a new market but for a matured business that has grown almost to it’s current market limit, it is unrealistic.

A more realistic goal for a matured business would sound like “I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market“. Make sense?

Time-Bound
Every goal needs to be bounded by a time frame so it can be measured and a baseline can be formed for future goals of similar capacity. Also a time-bound goals will lead to an urgency to take action and measure performance against.

“I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market” would not give you any urgency, you could take a year, two years or maybe forever. When it takes forever, it’s called day dreaming.

“I want grow the revenue of my business by 500% by expanding into a new market by [fill in your date]” would give you a dateline that you can start measuring your progress against. A dateline would ensure that you move towards your goal in a steady and consistent manner. Even when you missed the dateline, it would not be far off the mark as compared to not having one.

Summary
Look at the goal(s) that you have set, are they SMART enough? If not, isn’t it time to do something about it.

Cheers
James

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Hey Folks,

Welcome to Goal Setting Lesson One.Congratulations to those who have downloaded The Ladder of Dream™ Template, you have gotten yourself a flexible and powerful tool to plan and achieve any goals you can dream of. If you have not downloaded it, you can still get it on the side bar to the left.

Let me assume that this is your first time setting goals or, at the least, first time setting goals consciously. So where do you start? Or more accurately, where should you start?

Where To Start
I would recommend that everyone start from something simple. Really simple meaning something from our day to day life, such as:

- Being more productive at work
- Keeping the house in order
- Maintaining a physically fit body
- Maintaining a healthy body
- Maintaining a balance lifestyle between family, friends and work
- Keeping up with technology/current affairs/etc

“These goals are written in plain English, not following any Goal Setting Guidelines, to make it simple for beginners to understand. Next post, we will talk about those guidelines for writing a clear and concise goal”

As you can see, we are not talking about awe inspiring goals such as making a million dollars, creating an empire of retail stores kind of goals. These simple goals we are asking you to consider are pretty close to what most people are struggling to cope with (one way or another).

Why Do You Set Simple Goals First
Since it’s the first time you decided to consciously set goals, the most important aspect is not how big or grand the goal is. The most important aspect is that you must believe that the goals are achievable and when you achieve the goal, goal setting becomes believable.

Once you believed that goal setting is a tool that can truly help you achieve the goals that you set, you can start setting bigger goals for yourself and achieve them.

Important Lessons
Most people believe that goal setting is for big dreams and not for the mundane stuffs. Hence, simple goals are often left out in goal setting exercises. They reserved their goal setting for big goals but their belief system in goal setting may not be strong enough to handle the passage of big, long-term goals.

When they embark on those big, long-term goals and met with obstacles or set-backs, their belief in whatever plan that was drafted during their goal setting exercise is shaken. When it is shaken sufficiently, they will start losing faith in their plan and their goals. They may lose faith in their belief in goal setting completely too.

By starting simple, you get a chance to build a strong foundation. A foundation that is build on a strong belief that goal setting is a tool that could help you achieve your goals. With this strong foundation, you will never doubt that you had started on the wrong footing.

From this point onwards, you will learn how to be persistence and how to be flexible. Persistence will help you reach you goal, sooner or later. While being flexible and adapting your plans to changing circumstances, you will learn to navigate obstacles.

Now, you have the most basic qualities to achieve anything you want in your life.

What Is Your First Goal
So where will you start and what’s your first goal? You don’t have to tell me your goal but write it down in your “The Ladder of Dream™ Template”. You may wish to choose something in your daily life that you always wanted to do but have not done so or have not achieved your desired results so far.

Cheers
James

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Hey Folks,

If you have been following us for the past 5 post, you know we are currently on the topic of goal setting. If you have missed them, you can revisit them below:

What Are Goals and Goal Setting?

Can Dreams Be A Good Goal?

Are You A Day Dreamer Or Achiever?

Playing To Win

Even My Hamster Has A Goal

By now, you probably have, at least, made up your mind whether you should or should not have a goal. It doesn’t matter, to me at least, if you have decided that goals are not for you. It’s your choice and I’ll respect them.

For those who decide to set goals and pursue them, Congratulations! You have taken the first conscious step towards your dream and ‘ll show you what you can do next.

In the next couple of posts, I will be sharing the following topics about goal settings:

- Where to start and what goals to set
- General goal setting techniques
- Dream big and be inspired
- Taking it one step at a time
- Understanding your strength and your weakness
- Where to focus your effort
- How to set a right time frame for your goal

So before we go on with the first topic in the next post, I strongly encourage you to download The Ladder Of Dreams™ (Left side bar, top. Free Download), so you can follow us to plan your dreams.

Once you have downloaded The Ladder Of Dreams™, leave me a comment here. I would like to congratulate you personally for taking charge of your life and walking down the road of countless accomplishments.

Cheers
James

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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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