Stop Dreaming And Define Your Goals

We all go through our lives like zombies, dreaming of that “other life” we will have some day. I am just as guilty as you, sitting here in a hotel room and dreading the thought of returning to work. We can all think of that great life we all imagine we would like, but it won’t materialize unless we actually define these goals. I am going to show you how to define your goals, determine a time line while I define my own goals. My goal here is for you to look at my guideline here and to act on defining your own. Let’s go!

Step 1: Make a Concrete List of Your Goals

Sounds simple enough, but there’s a good many people that don’t take this step. There are so many reasons and I can tell you that the first one is fear. Silly right? Why should someone be scared of defining your goals? I am honestly scared of the unknown, of putting myself out there (in front of you), having the world criticize my work; let’s just say I have never sought the spotlight and don’t care to. This is something I need to work on because guess what? This blog, with my name stamped on it, is already out there. All I can do is share my successes and failures with my audience; hopefully a few people will walk away learning something new.

Now that we have gotten through this, let’s actually define these goals. What do I mean by “define”? Make a list of your goals; if it’s a broad list, that’s fine. Let’s start with mine:

1. Make full-time passive income
2. Move to San Diego
3. Grow my audience for this blog
4. Lose weight (ha! Yes, a classic one!)

Step 2: Break Down Your Goals

Just like Tim Ferriss discusses this in his book (and very nicely I might add), define these goals into action goals. Sure, we all would love to make a full-time income in 6 months, but how do I plan on succeeding? Is it an ambitious goal? Hell yeah! I do think I can make it happen. Also, the definition of “full-time income” is different for anyone, as is “passive income”. My definition of full-time income is $5000/month. Everyone has a different comfort level and that is mine in order for me to quit my job. As for passive income, I will keep trying my hand with eHow and Info Barrel, but I would like to move into affiliate product marketing and sales, as well as creating my own information product. So, along with me, take a few minutes to break down your own goals:

• Make full-time passive income
• full-time income = $5k(+)/month
• try affiliate marketing and sales as well as creating my own product
• If a strategy doesn’t work, change it and try again!
• Move to San Diego
• keep saving money so I can move and take off a couple of months
  quit my old job
• find a new job if I see no money coming in from passive income streams
• Grow my audience for this blog
• keep reaching out to people with similar blogs by leaving comments
• keep leaving comments in a consistent manner (at least weekly)
• get more Twitter audience for this blog (have no idea how to go about this)
• make guest appearances on other blogs (whew, this ties my tummy in knots!)
• Lose weight (ha! Yes, a classic one!)
• Work out 4 times a week
• Change work out routine every week
• At least 30 minutes twice a week and 45 minutes twice a week
• Incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet

Good God that’s a handful and I could break it down further more. However, what you don’t want to do is get lost in the cycle of breakdowns! You can’t plan everything 100% ahead of time; the course could change and you need that flexibility to alter the course if you need to. The goal here is to define your goals to begin with and then break them down into actions that we can perform to get there. We don’t have just “dreams” of that other life anymore; now we can take actions to work for these goals and now, hopefully, all these goals will seem realistic.

Step 3: Make Sure To Define Your Time-lines!

In case you never defined a time line for each one of your goals, do this now! This part is really important as most of us tend to define our goals and think something like, “Ok, I’ll move to CA in a couple of years. I’ll save money until then.” Before you know it, two years have passed and you never took any action to make those goals a reality.

• Make full-time passive income in 6 months
• full-time income = $5k(+)/month
• try affiliate marketing and sales as well as creating my own product
• If a strategy doesn’t work, change it and try again!
• Move to San Diego in 6 months
• keep saving money so I can move and take off a couple of months
• quit my old job
• find a new job if I see no money coming in from passive income streams
• Grow my audience for this blog – 1-6 months
• keep reaching out to people with similar blogs by leaving comments
• keep leaving comments in a consistent manner (at least weekly)
• get more Twitter audience for this blog (have no idea how to go about this)
• make guest appearances on other blogs (whew, this ties my tummy in knots!)
• Lose weight – 1-6 months
• Work out 4 times a week
• Change work out routine every week
• At least 30 minutes twice a week and 45 minutes twice a week
• Incorporate more fruits and veggies into my diet

Step 4: Print and Post Goals Where You Can See Them

I highly encourage you all to define your workspace. I have a bulletin board in my office room where I post relevant things and this is one of them. I post any time-sensitive items or bills there, so every time I pass by the room or go in to use my computer, it’s all in my view and I am reminded of what I have been working on. Don’t succumb to the “out of sight, out of mind” adage; doing that would infer that the goals you are working on, on some level, either make you anxious or stress you out. These goals don’t stress me out; I want to conquer them so I can live my life now.

For the time it took you to read this post, you can take a little more time and put these words into action. All it will “cost” you is 15-30 minutes, MS Word, Notepad, or OpenOffice, and a piece of paper. Start 2010 ready to conquer.

Have you already done this? What helps or has helped you accomplish similar goals?