The Seven Rules of Effective Goal Setting

Do you know how much progress you’ve made on your business this year? Are you growing? Are you missing the mark? You don’t know? Aren’t you measuring your progress based on your own personal goals? What? You haven’t set specific goals? Why not?

There are many reasons you may not have set any goals for yourself. Maybe you want to avoid responsibility and criticism. Maybe you fear failure and lack faith that the process of setting goals will not work for you. Maybe you simply don’t know how to set goals. Don’t let any of these reasons keep you from setting your own goals – a crucial first step in turning dreams into reality and ideas into success! There is a simple list of seven rules for personal goal setting that have withstood the test of time – because they work.

This is easy – just write down your goals! Just the physical and mental act of writing down your goals makes them part of your subconscious. Writing down your goals gives you an instant boost of energy and excitement; when you do it, regularly, you keep that energy and excitement going toward taking action, every day, to reach those goals!

Much like the GPS on your phone needs an address to navigate, your brain needs to clearly know where you’re going, so it will know exactly what to do to get there. Vague goals like, “I just want to have a good year” won’t get you anywhere. Can you imagine a CEO saying that to their board of directors? No. Because they wouldn’t. CEO’s set very specific goals and benchmarks, and as the CEO of your life, you need to do the same.

“People overestimate what can be done in one year, and underestimate what can be done in ten. —Bill Gates

While there’s nothing wrong with thinking big, you have to be realistic, and set some limits. What is realistic for you depends on your set of skills, as well as the resources that are available to you. In other words, your short-term goals need to be consistent with your skills and resources. Otherwise, you are just setting yourself up for discouragement and ultimately, failure. You’ll say that goal setting doesn’t work, and you will stop taking any action to meet your goals. The purpose of setting goals is to give you actual steppingstones to accomplish your bigger, long-term goals. Setting an out-of-reach, unrealistic short-term goal is so demotivating. Being realistic about what you can accomplish in 3 months, 6 months, 12 months will get you excited and motivated to keeping moving forward toward your long-term goals.

Action plans come with deadlines. Make sure you have a plan of action to take, every day, to meet your deadlines and stay on-track.

You may have heard the saying: A goal without a deadline and clear plan is just a wish.

We’ve already talked about setting realistic, short-term goals. Now it’s time to think big and set big long-term goals that make you feel energized and motivated! But what motivates you? Doubling your income? Creating enough wealth to enjoy true financial freedom? Creating your vision and big goals to match it will keep you excited and give you the drive to do the things you need to do now, because you’re working toward the promise of the future.

Know your why! Your why is what gives your goals meaning. Without meaning, you will have no energy. You want to make a lot of money? Why? Do you want to use it to help your family? To be free to travel. To be free from worrying about paying your bills. Being clear about your why and thinking about your why on a daily basis, will keep you energized and excited about working toward, and meeting your goals!

This is where the rubber meets the road. This is the most important part of goal setting – if you don’t take action, nothing will happen. So, this is where you do what you need to do to reach each short-term goal, one after another, until you reach your long-term goal – and get to enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Now that you know the Seven Steps of Goal Setting, you focus on the two goals a successful network marketer needs to focus on to build a successful online business:

1. Traffic You must take action, every day, to drive traffic consistently. Whether you’re advertising on Facebook, making YouTube videos, creating a blog on social media – you must do something to consistently drive traffic to grow your business.

2. Sales Next you have to do something to start a conversation. What’s the point of getting traffic, if you’re not making sales? Writing follow-up emails to connect to the people in your pipeline or setting up Facebook ads to your offer will trigger conversation that can lead to sales.

These are the things that people don’t always do on a regular basis – but these are the things that will grow your business, revenue, and income!

Now that you understand how the Seven Rules of Goal Setting can grow your business, it’s time to get started by going back up to the top of this article and start at Rule #1!