Unfortunately, the vast majority would have to admit that they do not have these written goals and that is a gigantic blunder.

Did you know that upwards of eighty five percent of all written goals come to pass. With that being the case, why don’t more people use this incredibly powerful tactic? First, most probably had no idea that was true and secondly most are living in a situation called the tyranny of the urgent. They are dealing with day to day situations all day long and never get to thinking about or planning for the future.

If you are one of the few, great job. You are achieving more than most. If not, get some paper and a pen, and start with long range goals. What do you want to be in ten years? If that is too far out, try for five. Work backwards from those long term goals and build smaller goals, steps really, to help you achieve them.

So now you have these goals all written out. What next?

First of all, unless someone is critical to helping you achieve your goal(s), do not freely share your goals with others. The negative attitude from friends, family and neighbors can drag you down quickly. It’s very important that your self-talk (the thoughts in your head) are positive.

Reviewing your goals daily is a crucial part of your success and must become part of your routine. Each morning when you wake up read your list of goals that are written in the positive. Visualize the completed goal, see the new home, smell the leather seats in your new car, feel the cold hard cash in your hands. Then each night, right before you go to bed, repeat the process. This process will start both your subconscious and conscious mind on working towards the goal. This will also begin to replace any of the negative self-talk you may have and replace it with positive self-talk.

Every time you make a decision during the day, ask yourself this question, "Does it take me closer to, or further from my goal." If the answer is "closer to," then you’ve made the right decision. If the answer is "further from," well, you know what to do.

If you follow this process everyday you will be on your way to achieving unlimited success in every aspect of your life.

Want to start making more progress toward your goals or business targets?  If you do, here is a simple process, which is guaranteed to work for you so long as you use it.  It’s based on a weekly, 3 step process of; reviewing, learning and taking action.  Although the focus is on weekly progress, by making each week an improvement on the previous week, you also make each month and year better too.

Here is how it works:

1. Do a review of last week

Start off by doing a review of last week.  Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• Who did I connect with?
• What measurable progress did I make?
• What went less well for me?
• What ate into my time, with little return?
• Where did my best results come from?

Write your answers down and get them ready for the next step.

2. What did I learn from last week?

Reviewing your answers from the previous step, what lessons are there?

The way you invest your time, is directly linked to your success or otherwise.  This is why it’s important for you to identify the activities that sucked your time up, without providing you with some kind of measurable progress.  Equally, you need to determine what activities were most profitable for you.

Write down as many lessons from last week as you can.  Look for the gold dust and also the dross.

3. What will I do to make this week better?

If a commercial activity was not working for you last week, you need to either fix it or remove it from your work-flow.  Many small business owners repeat things that don’t work, purely because they are comfortable with them.  They hope that their results will “just get better”, yet as Einstein assured us:

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results!

The week ahead can either be a chance for you to get a week better or a chance for you to relive the same frustrations again.  The reason most people simply get a year older each year, rather than a year better each year, is that they allow themselves to get into an unproductive rut.  They work hard, but mistake movement, for progress.

This final step is what separates the winners from the masses of frustrated business owners who make little if any progress.  Great intentions are not enough.  The world is full of people with great intentions, yet very few people action those great intentions.  You need to be smarter than that, if you want to make real, measurable progress.

Identify the changes you need to make and then motivate yourself to take the action required.  This is the cornerstone of all progress and the end to a life of frustration.

1. “What’s my vision of the future?”

2. “Where do I picture myself three years from today?”

3. “How will others perceive me in the future? My boss, my peers, my family?”

4. “What has to happen in the next two years for me to be happy with my progress?”

5. “What visual image do I have for my team? What visual image do I have for my company?”

6. “How do I want to be perceived by my customers? My employees?”

7. “How would my boss define me in one sentence?”

8. “What excites me most about my job? What do I want to do more of/less of/stop doing altogether, so I can achieve what’s important to me? To my team? To my company?”

9. “Which mountain do I want to climb?”

10. “What’s my definition of success?”

11. “What benchmarks do I need to achieve in order to feel successful?”

12. “What actions do I need to perform on a daily/weekly/monthly basis to achieve my goals?”

13. “What areas of my job should I focus on in order to have the most impact on my staff?”

14. “Where do I need to prioritize to insure my success? My team’s success?”
If your employees goals aren’t aligned with yours, you’ll find yourselves working at cross-purposes.

Think about your own personal and professional goals, then write them down and turn your written words into actions. Once you know what you want, you’ll be better prepared to help your employees figure out what they want, putting all of you on the same page and the fast track to your happy ending of choice.