I thought is was necessary to write about goal setting since this is the end of January and most people have probably given up on their New Years resolutions. If you haven’t, I commend you; keep it up.

It’s been proven by Harvard University that people who write their goals down are twice a likely to obtain their goals. But there’s a flaw in the way most people write their goals. Most lists of goals state: “lose 30 pounds,” “get a promotion,” “make a million dollars,” “buy a new 3000 sqft. House,” “trip to Europe,” trip to Hawaii”, “new 50 inch TV”, “new cloths”, “new furniture”, and “a new car,” etc. Some people might even go as far as to have a picture of the exact item they want and look at it every day. I’ve heard speakers say be very specific in setting your goals. While these thoughts are good, I think you have to do more than just write down: “I want a new car” and look at its picture every day. Let me explain.

If you need to travel by car from Michigan to California you would undoubtedly have a map. While it is possible to drive straight through, most people would make some stops for fuel and a couple of hotel nights. You know the entire trip would take 48 hours and you decide to drive 14 hours per day. So your first hotel stay would be 14 hours way. Then the next day you would have 34 hours before reaching California. So you drive 14 more hours and get a hotel. That night at the hotel you think, “Wow, I can’t believe I’ve driven for 28 hours in the last 2 days and I only have 20 more hours to California”. The next day you drive another 14 hours and get a hotel. However, you wake up extra early the next day because you’re only 6 hours away from sunny California.

I wrote out this long example because this is exactly how you should set your goals. If your goal was to visit California and you had no map how would you get there? The point of preparing a map for your goals is so that you can evaluate if you’re still on the right road. Writing your own map for a goal is not necessarily easy but neither is setting a goal and never obtaining it. So, if your goal is to have a new 3000 square foot home that cost $250,000, this is how your map should look.

To obtain this 3,000 sqft house which cost $250,000, I will need 10% for the down payment which will be $25,000. Each sale of product X will net $150. Therefore, I will help 300 people by selling them X service or product. I will need to sell 25 products each month for one year. To find 25 buyers a month, I will need to set 50 appointments. To set 50 appointments, I will need to send promotional material to 1000 people. (assuming I can obtain a 5% response rate)

1000 Promotional Packets = 50 Appointments which = 25 sales per month which = NEW House

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Goal Setting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.