How to Create Goals You Actually ACHIEVE

We're often encouraged to set financial or monetary goals, and give ourselves a deadline, such as making $100,000 by the end of the year. We're advised to make our goals measurable so that we can track our progress towards them. The problem with setting a goal to make a certain amount of money is that the process of making money is intangible and esoteric.

Even the goal of "making money" or "generating revenue" is out of our hands.  We don't have full control of that goal, because we must rely on outside factors.  

Imagine I've set two different goals:

1. Do 100 push-ups right now
2. Make $100

It's very obvious what you need to do to achieve the first goal, so you either do 100 push-ups, or you don't (fail!). The second goal is not so simple. There is no set strategy to follow to earn that money, and anyone for whom I set that goal would respond differently.

A goal should not just be measurable but actionable, because you're more likely to achieve a goal if you have an understanding from the offset of how to do so. In the case of a business or financial goal, I recommend removing the money and thinking of the task at hand in a different way. Here are the steps I like to take:

1. Identify the project or promotion I'm working on
2. Create three monetary goals:
• Hairy scary goal (the amount you want to make)
• Middle of the road goal (a reasonable, respectable amount)
• Wimpy goal (an easily achievable amount)
3. Set a very specific deadline
4. Remove the money & Replace with an Action Item 

Financial goals set us off on the right track, but they can cause us to get stuck and lose direction and motivation. These are the questions to think about instead of focusing on the money:

• How will I achieve this goal?
• Assuming I already completed this goal, what steps DID I take? 

For example, if your goal is to make $5,000, and you have a product for sale for $100, you'd need to sell 50 units to reach your target.

But let's not stop there. Ask yourself, how are you going to sell it? A typical answer might be that you would use Facebook advertising to promote the product. Then, you need to calculate how much you need to spend on Facebook ads to make a sale. If the cost per sale is $10, you'll need to spend around $500 to make $5000. Therefore, if you want to make $5000 by the end of the month, your goal should be to spend $500 on Facebook ads by the end of the month.

Of course, everyone's business is different, but this can be applied to all kinds of situations. Here's another example: If you sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door and typically make one sale worth $200 for every four houses you visit, you can expect to earn $2,000 by visiting 40 houses. Therefore, your goal should not be to earn $2,000, but to visit 40 houses.

The key is to continue digging deeper until you find a goal similar to the push-ups goal I mentioned earlier: either you do the push-ups or you don't; either you spend the money on Facebook or you don't. The route to achieving this goal is completely clear.

The secret to my goal setting strategy is to remove the money from the equation and identify the key action-oriented goals that will get to your desired outcome.

Watch my video on this subject for more detailed advice and check out my channel for lots more on goal setting and other business tips.

Plus! I've got an in-depth episode on my podcast about goal-setting as well:
http://www.mindyourbusinesspodcast.com/podcast/87