Far Goals: It’s the Hail Mary, the cross court shot, a trip to Mars. It’s something you know is impossible . . . today. But something that could be accomplished with enough time, enough practice, and a long term goal to get there.

I’ve had a number of far goals in my life. Each one seemed impossible at the time. There was always a nagging voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, or dedicated enough. I couldn’t possibly reach it.

Yet, in  so many cases, the impossible became possible. The far distant goal, came closer and closer, until I was able to reach out and grab it. Sadly, some of the distant goals in my life have eluded me. Some I can see, but there is a mountain or a valley in the way. Some are clouded with a mystery that requires a clue, a key, or a bit of luck. Some are on the other side of a river of fear. A shallow fast moving stream that looks so deep, so treacherous. I couldn’t possibly cross.

Think of the far goals in your life. Maybe it’s a bachelor’s degree, maybe a masters. Maybe the next goal in your life is a doctorate, maybe a leadership position, maybe the lauded CEO position.

Do you have a path, a bridge, or a plan to get there?

Dreams and good ideas are a dime a dozen.

Goals and SMART Goals are a start,

A good strategy is important,

But action is the key.

You must go.

Today.

Take the first step.

Visualize where you are going,

Create a detailed roadmap to get there,

Then put one foot in front of the other and step out.

Here is a tool to get you started. A Far Goals Worksheet.

Far Goals

Years ago, I was listening to a motivational tape by Zig Ziglar. He talked about setting long term goals and the need to write them down. He drilled into my head the need to take action, get started, and get the goals written down.

The first step was to put the vision on paper.

It was this single step that led to so many things. Once the goal was on paper, it was much easier to break it down into pieces or achievable steps. The easiest way to get your goals on paper is to download a goal setting worksheet.

Here are three different ones that will help you start your journey. These sheets are a great first step to get your dreams and ideas in writing. Each sheet has some brainstorming questions to get you started. My suggestion is to download each one and take a few minutes and fill them out. The combination of the three will give you a long term view of your life and help you plan where you want to go.

Far Goals Worksheets

50 Year Goals: This is a personal legacy worksheet. It includes five questions and it is a great precursor to the other two worksheets below. It’s a great way to brainstorm your life. Ask some of the big questions.

10 Year Goals: The worksheet makes it easy to see your long term goals, add in the areas to need to master, and then write out a plan to achieve them.

5 Year Goals: Here is a way to see how your goals line up with upcoming trends. Are you on the right path or are new trends going to make your goal obsolete?

With the three worksheets completed you’ll have a great starting point to refine your specific goals, add details, and create a strategy and action plan to complete them.

Next Step

In our next post we’ll look at adding specifications to your far goals using the SMART Goals framework. This will allow you to set specific boundaries, time parameters, and make sure they are realistic and actionable. In later posts we’ll create a strategy and action plan for completion. We’ll look at Deep Work and how mastery plays into the goal setting equation. Stay tuned.

Additional Tools

Once you have your goals written down, you’ll want to put them where you can see them. The Goal Setting Toolkit provides business sized cards to keep your goals front and center. You can keep them on your desk, tape one to your monitor, or put one on the refrigerator where you’ll see it daily. This is a helpful tool that will make the goal setting process easier.

The post Far Goals: Master the Impossible appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

Goal success is dependent on a number of factors. You can have the best-planned goal, complete with SMART specifics, and fail miserably. The odds of success are mixed. I surveyed my readers a few years ago, and SMART Goals had about a 50% success rate. New Year Resolutions fare much worse. Less than 10% are successful. 25% fail the first week.

I’ve found the secret to goal success is in the execution. Unfortunately, there are many pitfalls along the way. One of the best ways to visualize how goal setting works is to see it in action. As a long time blogger, I’ve worked with marketing and product development for years. When you create a product, you set up a list of customer goals. You need to take a client through many steps down this goal list to complete the sales cycle.

Let’s take a look at the success and failure of a product goal since it is easy to see the failure points.

The Anatomy of a Product Goal

First, you need to get a prospective customer to buy your product. The purchase is dependent on the product cover art, specifications, marketing, and the customer’s perceived value of the item. One bad rating, cheaper competitor, or shipping problem can stop the process cold.

Once they purchase the item and get it home, they may have to put it together and make specific settings. They will need to have certain tools and knowledge to complete this step. Clear and logical assembly instructions are a must. If they don’t have a screwdriver or pliers, your best-laid goal may fail.

Finally, your customer will need to be able to use the completed unit. Complete step-by-step instructions with pictures are critical. If it requires batteries, you might want to include them. Are there age warnings or safety concerns? Better spell them out. Only when the customer successfully uses your product will the goal be a success.

If any step along the way fails, your entire sales goal will fail, and the product will be returned or discarded. The result will be a bad rating, further dampening future sales, plus the expense of return shipping. In sales and marketing, comebacks are disastrous.

On the other hand, when the product goal is complete, the customer will be happy, giving you an excellent rating and may lead to further sales in the future.

Goal Success or Failure

Let’s look at a specific Goal/Product example. By looking at two competing products side by side, it’s easy to see flaws in goal execution.

Over the holidays I purchased two small quadcopter drones. One was a direct import from a Chinese company called Hubsan, and the other was a packaged product from Horizon Hobby, an American company.

On the cover of the boxes was a picture of the drone along with specifications of what they would do.

The Hubsan unit was a fantastic value. For under a hundred dollars it came with built-in GPS, return to home, and a 12-minute battery, not to mention an HD video camera. I was genuinely excited to open the package and get flying.

The Horizon drone that came from my local hobby store was pretty cool too. The picture on the front of the box was exciting, and the back cover showed how it worked. There was a lot more information on this box than the other one. It gave me assurance that it would be easy to fly and that it was safe to use. However, the specs were underwhelming. It had a five-minute battery, no camera or GPS, was minuscule, but it was only sixty dollars.

Some Assembly Required

Opening the packages was the trick. The Hubsan drone required assembly. You had two sets of propellers that had to go on individual motors each with a different colored screw. They gave you a tiny screwdriver to complete the task but forgot to mention that half the screws had right-hand threads, the others left hand. The instructions were in broken English. After an hour of messing around and watching numerous YouTube videos, I finally had the unit assembled. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with AAA batteries. Down to the store to pick those up.

The Hobby store drone was just the opposite. It came fully assembled with four AA batteries in the box. The lithium battery for the drone was pre-charged. I put the battery in the craft, the four batteries in the controller, and read two lines of instructions. I turned it on, put it on the floor and with a click of the throttle I was flying. Five minutes to a smile on my face.

I took the Hubsan drone to my local park to fly, but with confusing Chinese/English instructions, I couldn’t get it to go. I tried for about fifteen minutes and then gave up. Going back to my car, I pulled up a third party YouTube video up on my phone and finally figured out the complicated calibration and start-up sequence. After an enormous amount of time and frustration, I finally was able to get it to fly. Thankfully, I had enough willpower to see it through. For most people, it would be a return to the store. Fail, fail, fail.

Although I was ultimately successful with both craft, one took a tremendous amount of persistence.

Goal Success Factors

Here is the number one thing I learned about Goal Success from these two little drones. It’s the little things that will stop you cold. Many of them are unexpected. Something as simple as a tiny little screw halted my progress. My simple product/goal analogy. For your goal to be a success, you have to put everything in the box.

You need the following . . .

1. An exciting cover picture (The Goal)
2. Excellent specifications (The SMART specifics)
3. All the parts and pieces (The Structure)
4. Clear assembly instructions (Strategy)
5. Batteries included. (Motivation)
6. Step by step use instructions (Action Steps)

In my drone example, the Hubsan company should have put the propellers on at the factory and sold the unit in a little bigger box. They should have hired a copywriter fluid in English to write the instructions. These two simple tweaks would solve 80% of the problems and ensure success to most buyers.

When I look back over my life, many of the goals I’ve set have set have ended in failure. Just like these drones, the simpler and more complete a goal was, the better chance I had of completing it. If everything was in the box, I was almost certain to find success. If anything was missing, I would be stopped cold. Stop me two or three times and I would give up. Many of my goals (weight loss, education, etc.) were a total waste of time and money because of some minor issue. Had I been able to get past the obstacle, the goal would be complete.

In our next few posts, we’ll take a look at goal success and failure points and find ways to get past the obstacles that keep us from success.

Question: What failure points have kept you from reaching a goal?

The post Goal Success: A Tale of Two Products appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

Sometimes you just want to get things done. That’s where the short term goal setting worksheet comes in. The whole idea of this sheet is to prompt you to get one goal written down along with one desired outcome. Nothing more, nothing less. The sheet has a positive message at the top and three boxes along the bottom for phone, email, and social media links to help you get your goal accomplished.

Example: Your goal for the day might be to make ten sales calls, and the desired outcome would be a thousand dollars in sales. You could fill in the phone and email sales links at the bottom.

Ideal for Personal Use

This sheet is perfect for personal use. Just print it out, fill it in and place it on your desk or table top where you will see it at a glance. Since it is big and bold, it will catch your attention and remind you of the task at hand.

A Positive Message for Co-Workers

This sheet is also ideal for handing off to colleagues. Its positive message starts the day off right, and the job is laid out directly. One goal, one outcome. How many times have you told someone to help you with a task but they are unclear about the issue. This simple sheet prevents misunderstanding.

Teachers Love It

Teachers will find this sheet helpful for individual classwork assignments and take-home work. Its simple message is clear, and the outcome is spelled out. You can have students return their homework with this sheet to sign off an individual assignment.

Leave a Positive Note Behind

This sheet is also a positive way to leave a note behind for a housekeeper/worker/tradesperson if you have to go away for the day. You can write down instructions at the top and your contact information at the bottom so they can reach you if they have any questions.

Printable Sheet

This simple short term goal setting worksheet is a free download. Just download the PDF, print it out and fill in with a pen or Sharpie.

Short Term Goal Setting Worksheet

Download Link

Podcast

I have a short podcast about this planner. Check out the Daily Drivecast Link

Video Link

Question: How will you use this planner?

The post Short Term Goal Setting Worksheet appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

January 1st, 7 am. The alarm clock goes off and your New Year’s Resolution stares you directly in the face.

The reality of that goal you set a few weeks back comes to roost with a jangling of bells, sleep in your eyes, and a feeling of dread. It all sounded so good. Heck, all you had to do was write down the specifics, create some action steps, make it realistic, and magically you would be transported 90 days out with your dream of a new book a reality. Unfortunately, 7 am in the morning comes. Now you have to do something. Usually, you would be able to sleep in, but now that you set this stupid goal, you’ve got to get out of bed and write 1,000 words before 8 am, when you usually would get up.

The first day you grudgingly get up and sit in front of the computer. After fifteen minutes of staring at the screen, you start to write. The words come slowly. You’re tired and sleepy. This new goal and habit you’re trying to create are not as easy as the book made it sound. With some willpower, you make it through to 8 am. Now you have to get ready for work.

Sum total for your first day, 250 words.

As the week progresses, you start to fudge on the wake-up time. You hit the snooze button; then you hit it again. The word count shrinks. You struggle. Friday comes, 1125 words for the week. Not even close to the 5,000 you planned. Next week you struggle again. Then one day, you don’t get up. You’ve got an excuse. A few days later, it’s all over.

Goal failure. Maybe next year the book will get written.

So what happened here. Why did this well planned SMART Goal fail?

I’ve asked myself this many times. How to set goals that don’t fail? The problem is usually an entrenched habit. In this case, the long time practice is going to bed late and sleeping in until 8 am.

You set the goal, but you didn’t deal with the habit.

What I’ve found from years of research on the subject, is that when a goal conflicts with an existing habit, the goal eventually fails. Willpower may get you through for a limited time, but old habits usually win. So the question is… how to set goals that you can accomplish? With over 80% of New Year’s resolutions ending in failure after a few weeks, is there anything that works?

How to Set SMARTER Goals

The answer is to add two letters to the end of our SMART Goal. We need to add an “E” and an “R.”

• E stands for Existing Habit
• R stands for Routine.

Here are two secrets that researchers have discovered…

1. It’s much easier to change an existing habit than creating a new one.
2. Change takes energy, lots of it.

So for our example above, if we want to set aside an hour a day to write a new book, we need to find an existing habit to change and do it when we have lots of energy. Obviously, if we are a night owl, getting up early after staying up until one in the morning is not going to work. We don’t have enough energy to work efficiently.

How to Set SMARTER Goals Using an Existing Habit

Let’s look for an existing habit that we can change at a time that we have enough energy to carry it out. For our night owl who is energized in the evening, it makes sense to look at that time period.

• 6 pm to 7 pm: Dinner
• 7 pm to 8 pm: TV Game Shows
• 8 pm to 9 pm: TV Sitcom
• 9 pm to 10 pm: TV Drama Series
• 10 pm to 1 am: Video Games or Reading

After scanning the existing routines, it appears that anything after dinner is fair game. For our example, what current routine would be the easiest to give up at a time that we would have the most energy? I’m not much of a TV watcher, but I would say our Game Show hour would be prime time to change an existing habit. It’s early enough that we will still have plenty of energy and the game shows are not a series that we will miss out on. So let’s plan out a full SMARTER Goal written in the first person.

• Specific: Write a 60,000 word Mystery Novel
• Measurable: At the end of each week I will have written 5,000 words
• Actionable: Write 1,000 words  for my new book from 7 pm to 8 pm daily
• Realistic: Typing Speed 40 WPM. 1,000 words per hour is a comfortable pace.
• Time Bound: The first draft of 60,000 words will be done after 12 weeks
• Existing Habit: Changed from watching game shows to writing my book
• Routine: Energized routine will be to turn off the TV and write for an hour

As you can see, planning out a new routine around an existing habit will give us a much greater chance of success than trying to create a new habit of getting up early and adding a writing exercise on top of it. Listing out our current routines gives us a chance to pick one that is easy to change. In this case, being an evening person, we’ll have plenty of energy to write, and game shows are not a series, so they won’t be missed. Our probability of success has gone up considerably.

Options: If we want to create a new habit of getting up early, it’s going to take a lot of extensive effort. I recommend that you read Michael Hyatt’s insightful post, How To Become a Morning Person or Andy Traub’s book, Early to Rise. It’s better to get the routine down before committing to a new goal during that time period.

Overall: In this example above, we have taken a look at a common point of failure for many goals and resolutions. By tying a goal in with an existing habit and creating an updated routine, we raise our chances of success considerably.

SMARTER Goals Worksheet

To help you design and set SMARTER Goals I’ve created a SMARTER Goal Worksheet.

SMARTER Goal Worksheet in Color: Download PDF

SMARTER Goal Worksheet in B&W: Download PDF

It’s a free download and prints out on a normal letter sized page. To use you just start at the top and fill in the blanks.

Here are the sections.

• What you want to accomplish (goal).
• Your existing cue, routine, and reward from a current habit
• List out a new habit routine that will help you reach your goal.
• Go through the SMART list and make sure your new routine passes
• Write out the new SMARTER routine and outcome
• Write a positive goal action statement

The filled out sheet should look like the one below.

Once you have your goal sheet filled in, keep it on your desk or in a prominent place where you can refer to it on a regular basis.

You can download a filled in copy for reference here

Additional Goal Setting Resources

• Habit Change Tips
• SMARTER Goals: Testing and Tuning

Get My Kindle Book on SMARTER Goal Setting

My book has full instructions and examples to help you set SMARTER Goals.

• Goals For Life

Question

What existing habit will you change? 

The post How To Set SMARTER Goals appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

I was brainstorming some ideas the other day for an upcoming ebook on goal setting and was trying to come up with words that expressed the difference between standard goal setting and setting goals that are truly life-changing.

After trying many different word combinations, two words remained on my paper. Evolutionary versus Revolutionary. Evolutionary being the small incremental changes that many goal setting programs expound. Set a goal, and when you meet it, bump it up another 5%.

Many sales goals are set this way. Set a quota for the salesperson and then incrementally increase it month after month. When I was in sales years ago, I faced this dilemma on a monthly basis. It worked OK until you didn’t hit it one month. Then it was almost like a noose around your neck. The excuses came and the quota became a demotivator.

Revolutionary goals are a different animal. Instead of a small change, the goal takes things to a new level. The whole process is reviewed, ideas brainstormed, and a new approach taken. The status quo is thrown out and a new process brought in. Goals like this can be scary, and the risk can be high, but the payoff can be profound.

In my life, I have experienced both types of goals. Evolutionary goals at best result in small consistent improvements. But unless the approach is modified over time, the results soon flatline. Revolutionary goals, on the other hand, can have an exponential effect.

Evolutionary Versus Revolutionary In The Real World

To give you a real-world example, let’s take an example from the PC world. Microsoft vs. Apple. Microsoft is one of the most evolutionary companies on the planet. They usually start with an idea someone else has come up with and modify it slightly. They put their marketing muscle behind it and make incremental changes over time.

Take Microsoft Word for example. It has incrementally changed since the mid 90’s. Each new update brings a new feature or two, but Word 365 is fundamentally the same as Word 97. Sure it has a new ribbon toolbar, but it works in almost the exact same way as it’s predecessor. It has basically become a commodity. And commodities soon go to the lowest bidder.

Apple, on the other hand, has come out with many revolutionary products. Walk into one of their stores and be wowed with innovation. Starting with the Macintosh back in the 80’s almost every product has set new ground. There was the iPod, the iPhone, and now the iPad. Each one selling out with store lines around the block. Revolution done right can have incredible results.

When setting goals for the future, you can take either approach. Will you be like the mainstream crowd, take the status quo, and go for small improvements or will you take a revolutionary idea and run with it. I would argue for Apple’s approach. Do something revolutionary and then make evolutionary changes.

Evolutionary versus revolutionary, that is a question most businesses need to ask. Do you play it safe a make a micro change for the new year? Maybe a tweak here or a slight change there. Or do you go big? Scrap the old and come out with something that no one has seen before. Do you burn the ships and go for it, or resort to that incremental change?

Question: What revolution do you want to start?

The post The Difference Between Evolutionary and Revolutionary appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

Table of Contents

Goal Setting

Goal setting is simply writing down a dream. Goal achieving is simply taking that written goal and taking action to complete it. Sounds easy doesn’t it. Imagine writing down your dream of making a million dollars. You can see the thousand dollar bills sitting in a large safe. Feel the texture, smell the aroma of freshly printed ink. Now all you have to do is write down an action plan, and do it step by step.

Some success gurus in the expert space will tell you it’s that simple. Just pay them a few thousand dollars and they will give you all the tools you need to find success. You determine what you want, and then go get it.

Unfortunately they don’t tell you the painful, messy and often expensive road to success. The 100 hour weeks, the mortgaging of your house, and the back stabbing people you have to deal with along the way. They certainly don’t tell you about the people that fail along the way, spending money they don’t have on products that they don’t need or the bad days when your spouse leaves you because she hasn’t seen you in a month.

Goal setting has been so over glamorized that you would think the rewards are easy. But in truth, the real question is; are you willing to do what it takes to be successful? Ask yourself:

Are you willing to put in the time, effort and money to move forward?

If so, let’s really simplify the whole process.

Let’s start at the beginning.

To help guide you along with the rest of this article I’ve taken a simple goal that you have probably faced in your life a few times. It’s one that I faced for way too long. It’s simply this; you have a collection of items that you need to put away. Maybe it’s a sink full of dishes, a pile of junk mail on your kitchen counter, or maybe, like me, a collection of tools sitting on your workbench.

You simply need to clean them up and put them away.

Simple enough . . . or is it?

Goal Setting Example

To start my goal setting example, I’ll share with you a task that should have taken me ten minutes at the most, yet I put it off for months. I had accumulated a pile of tools on my workbench that needed to be cleaned up and put back in my toolbox. I simply didn’t put them away after I worked around the house a few times. Simple enough. But I agonized and procrastinated about that task for months.

Maybe you can relate?

Maybe your garage is a mess. Maybe you have a junk room that needs sorting. Maybe your sink is piled up with dishes since last week . . . or longer.

Most people I know have some area that needs attention.

Just driving down my street on a Saturday morning and glancing behind the open garage doors lets me know I’m not alone with this goal.

In this example my goal is simply this. I want to put my tools back in the toolbox.

Let me take you along on a journey and show you why goal setting is harder than it looks.

Dreams

The first stop on your goal setting journey is to walk out into your garage. You see the pile of tools on the workbench and sitting on top is a newspaper, which catches your eye. On the back page is a picture of a garage organizing system. Instantly you daydream about the perfect garage. The gleaming white cabinets offset your painted floor. Your household tools are all organized and put away. Your larger tools are hanging neatly on the wall. Clean, shiny and beautiful.

Your dream is perfection.

You know what you want.

Unfortunately, you put the paper down and walk back in the house. Your tools still on the workbench.

Reality is that dreams alone do not make a goal.

You had a vision of success, but nothing else.

Definition of a Dream: a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind

Simply Said: The act of visualizing your goal or idea. You need to be able to see it.

Step 1: Visualize Your Goal. Completed

Resolutions

You walk back in the house, somewhat depressed. You visualize that beautiful and organized garage in your mind but then think back to the ugly pile of tools you have sitting on the counter. You say to yourself; “I’m going to clean those tools up and put them away.”

Now you have a resolution. A resolve to do something about your present condition.

Definition of a Resolution: a resolve; a decision or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.

Simply Said: The act of speaking your goal. You need to be able to describe the goal audibly.

Step 2: Vocalize Your Resolution. Completed

Unfortunately, by themselves vocal resolutions fail over 80% of the time. You are going to need to take an additional step.

Goals

You remember hearing the old adage that you should write your goals down, so you walk over to your desk, grab a piece of paper and write down your goal. You simply write; I’m going to put my tools away.

You take the piece of paper and tape it to your computer monitor.

Now, every time you sit at your computer, you’ll be reminded that you need to put your tools away.

You have a written goal.

Definition of a Goal: the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end.

Simply Said: The act of writing your goal. You need to be able to describe the goal on paper.

Step 3: Write your goals down. Completed.

Unfortunately, just like resolutions, just writing down a goal doesn’t make it so. You need to add specifics.

SMART Goals

Staring at the goal on the monitor in front of you, you remember an acronym they used at work for goal setting. You recollect your manager saying you should set SMART Goals. Picking up your work folder off of your desk, you search until you find the SMART Goals handout. On it is listed five criteria.

A goal must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

So you take five minutes and list out some specifics

1. Specific; I will take all the tools off of the workbench, clean them, and put them back in the proper drawers of my toolbox.
2. Measurable: When all of the tools on the desk are in the box, the goal will be completed.
3. Attainable: Putting all the tools away is certainly well within my ability.
4. Relevant: Putting my tools away is relevant to a clean and well organized garage.
5. Time Bound: I will put my tools away by the end of the day tomorrow.

Definition of a SMART Goal: It needs to conform to the following criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

Simply Said: The act of writing out SMART specifics. You need to be able to complete all five criteria on paper.

Step 4: SMART Goal Criteria Written Down. Completed.

Now you have a deadline and specifics, but still no action plan. You’ve moved closer to completing your goal, but in my research about 50% of SMART Goals fail. Unfortunately, many goal setting plans stop here.

Maybe you need something more . . .

Why Goals Fail

Goals fail because there is something missing in the execution.

In the case here, you have a goal, but at a time that is distant.  You know what needs to be done, but you have no action plan. You have visualized success, but not how to achieve it.

Definition of Failure: nonperformance of something due, required, or expected:

Unfortunately, a SMART Goal without an action plan leads to . . .

Procrastination

As humans, we are generally lazy. Our lizard brain asks: Why would we want to go out into the hot garage and get all dirty cleaning up tools? After all, no one will see the mess. We start making excuses. We start thinking about anything but the task at hand. Going back in the living room and having a cool one watching TV, sounds a lot better than your dirty stinky garage.

I’ll put the tools away LATER . . .

Definition of Procrastination: Putting off or delaying, especially something requiring immediate attention

Unfortunately, LATER for many people never comes. Often we procrastinate with a lesser job or task, or just go veg out in front of the television.

What we really need is a  . . .

System

So far, we have set ourself a goal of putting our tools away. Following all of the guidelines for goal setting, we now have a SMARTER goal. We have a far off deadline, and our mind is trying to distract us with more pleasurable activities like watching TV. Unfortunately, when you’re working toward a goal, you are essentially saying to yourself, “I’m not good enough yet, but I will be when I reach my goal.”

Imagine how you will feel when you miss the deadline tomorrow.

the self talk will rage . . .

• I can’t even put my tools away
• I’m so stupid, what a dunce
• I don’t have any willpower

Then of course, you’ll grab a pint of ice cream and go watch another TV show.

But think back to the goal. Every time you look at that pile of tools you stress out. You feel stupid for letting your tools get like that, and even worse for procrastinating who knows how many times that you have walked into the garage.

Setting the goal adds stress.

However, instead of a goal, how about developing a system to clean and sort your tools. Then just set a timer and execute the system. When you focus on the practice instead of the performance, you will enjoy life much more.

Definition of System: Any formulated, regular, or special method or plan of procedure:

So here is how a tool/object cleaning system would work: You pick up one tool, wipe it off with a rag and cleaner, walk over to your toolbox and put it in the proper drawer. You audibly say to yourself, I’m going to pickup this hammer, clean it off and put it in drawer number two. Then walk back to workbench and repeat.

Set a timer for ten minutes and execute the system.

No goal or performance mental stress hit.

Action

The easiest way to take action on a system or goal is to use what is know as a “timebox.” Just turn off all distractions, set a timer for a desired time (50 minutes is a popular time for longer projects) and then do one and only one task until the timer goes off. Take a ten minute break and then repeat as necessary.

Definition of Action: An act that one consciously wills and that may be characterized by physical or mental activity:

SMARTER Goals

Definition of a SMARTER Goal: It needs to conform to the following criteria: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely and be designed around an Existing Habit, where the Routine is changed.

Goal in the Box

Some Assembly Required

All Inclusive

Batteries Included

The Impossible Gift

Can I give this goal to someone and be guaranteed that they accomplish it?

The post Goal Setting: A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

It’s that time of year again… time to set our goals. And we have all been told that we need to WRITE them down. But the question is… where do you write them down? We usually put them in our Outlook calendar or  paper based planner. But can we see them?

I have found that this is the biggest challenge, putting our written goals in a common place where we can reference them on a daily basis. If you don’t see them, they will soon be out of sight… and out of mind. We need a tool that will allow us to take our goals with us and always be on. I’ve put my goals in my phone, but the screen is usually off. When they are in Outlook, they may not always be on the screen.

What will work?

Introducing the Goal Setting Toolkit.

This paper based kit has business card sized reminders that you can take with you in pocket or purse. You can put them on your desk or clip them to your monitor. They can be attached to your dashboard in your car. You can take them almost anywhere.

The kit includes nine different cards for different goal setting needs. You may find that you use many of them or find one particular one that you print over and over. Here is a highlight of some of the cards and common uses for them.

The BHAG card. This card is useful for planning your long term goals. With a line for 10 year, 5 year, and one year goals, you’ll find this card is a great starting point for goal setting. Write down a few words that describe where you want to be at each milestone. Take a look at the example card to the left for ideas. The key here is to think and dream BIG! When you can picture where you want to be a few years out it will help you solidify your shorter term goals.

The My Goal Card: This universal goal setting toolkit card will help you remember that most goals need to be specific, measurable, and actionable. To use this card, write down a title for the goal and then write down the specifics. Focusing on the three areas on the card will help you create a goal that is easily accomplished.

The Daily Goal Card: Once you have the other goal cards completed the daily goal card is an easy reminder of what needs to be done TODAY. This is a great card to keep with you at all times. Put it on your desk where you can see it. Take it with you in the car. If you see it… you will remember it! This is a great card to print multiple copies of.

Setting Performance Goals: When you have goals such as weight loss that have measurable milestones we have a couple of cards that will help you track your progress. Included are a generic item-results card and a 12 week Goal-Actual card. Also included is the 4 week milestone card along with a weekly reminder and weekly milestone card.

The 48 Minute Card: This card is helpful when used with a 48 minute focused work session. The card is divided into 12 minute sections and is a quick and useful way to plan out a focused work period. Fill in this card before working to help you stay focused for all 48 minutes.

Goal Setting Toolkit

These cards fit easily in pocket or purse and are a great addition to our Walleteer organizer. Download a set today and make sure your new goals are written down and put where you can see them.

For more information on goal setting please refer to our other posts.

Goal Setting Category

Success Goals: Legos and Puzzle Pieces

Goal Setting Strategy: The 4-12-48 Solution

Paint by Number Goals

Goals: Create the Gallery of Your Life

The post Goal Setting Toolkit appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

The number one secret to setting goals is…

Drum roll, please…

Write them down!

A goal kept in your head is just a dream.

The problem is… where do you write them down?

I want to make it easy for you today, to commit your goals to paper.

The Secret to Setting Goals

Here are two simple tools to get you started. Just print them out and go!

1. Goal Setting Sheet: Just download, print out, and fill in.

This is a simple place to keep your long term goals. Thinking long term can help you decide what you really want. Bringing it in closer, with one year and twelve-week goals, will help you put plans in place to accomplish your long term dreams. To help you figure out your top goals for the year, complete the Top Goal Worksheet in step 2 below. Follow the instructions and then fill in this sheet with your action plan…

2. Figure Out Your Top Goal and Action Steps.

Here is a worksheet based on Brian Tracy’s Book, The Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success. He devised a four-step process to help you find your top goal and come up with action steps to complete it.

Here are the Instructions…

Print out the Top Goal Worksheet

1. Write down ten goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months. Things you want to have, do or become.
2. Look at all ten goals and ask yourself this question. If you could only accomplish one goal on this list, but you could accomplish it in 24 hours, which one would have the greatest impact on your life? Brian says in most cases it will jump out at you. Write the goal down in bold writing in the bottom box of the sheet.
3. Print out the top 20 sheet and write down twenty action steps to accomplish this goal. This step will be easy at first but will become harder as you progress down the list. Don’t stop until you have filled in all twenty.
4. Each day take at least one action step to accomplish your goal

Once you have your sheet filled in you can transfer them to your main goal setting sheet for easy reference. With your goals and action plans written down, you’ll want to put together a weekly and daily plan for success. We’ll talk about that in a future post.

Goal Setting Worksheets (All 3 in one zip file)

Now that you know the secret to setting goals, why not take five minutes and write them down. In years to come, you’ll be glad you did!

Question: What are some of your long term goals?

The post The Number One Secret To Setting Goals appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

The five-year goal threshold is an interesting one. It’s far enough out that we can plan some pretty big outcomes, but close enough that we can predict some trends. This allows us to fine-tune our goals, and avoid putting our ladder up on the wrong wall, with outcomes that we don’t want or didn’t foresee. It allows us to avoid bucking an unavoidable trend.

We don’t have to go back in time very far to see new trends that emerged over the last decade that totally changed the business landscape for many people. Look at travel agents. Their entire industry was decimated by online travel apps. Yet there was a huge opportunity to grow in this space if you had the software and right programmers behind you.

SEO companies, who were the darlings of the business world in the early part of the 2000 decade, were hit hard by changes in the Google search algorithm. Almost everything they were advising businesses to do in 2005, has been completely reversed. Companies that were aware of the trends were able to take advantage of the changes and rocket to the top of the charts, those that didn’t, fell quickly off the front page of search.

If you were a Computer service tech or programmer during Y2K you were in high demand. Every company with any type of computer infrastructure wanted to make sure that the world didn’t end for them on January 1st, 2000. Yet, soon after that, huge advances were made in fiber optic cabling around the world. Web speed increased exponentially and soon it was as easy for a tech or programmer in India to do the computer work of one in the United States. Whole tech departments were moved, jobs were eliminated and the entire industry was rocked by little glass fibers running under the ocean.

Going into the decade, if you knew what the trend was, you could avoid being caught up in the turmoil by changing jobs or consulting for profit. In fact, if you knew the trend, you could go to work for one of the leading edge companies innovating or start your own business to profit from the changes.

Think about our immediate future. We are on the brink of a robot explosion. These new machines will be brought in to replace expensive employees in many different industries. If you currently flip hamburgers for McDonald’s, you’ll probably see your job disappear over the next five years as a fast food robot who can make burgers ten times faster replaces you. If you are a library clerk, bank teller or loan officer, you’re almost certain to be replaced by an automated process or robot over the next decade.

However, if you are a doctor, dentist, or elementary school teacher, your job will most likely be in high demand. It’s helpful to view a list of the Most Secure and Least Secure jobs in the robot economy and see if you are presently in danger or not. I was surprised by some of the occupations on the list.  Umpires and Referees were number two on the most endangered, while sales engineers and lodging managers were considered very safe.

To give you an idea on future trends, author and speaker Daniel Burrus has put together a free list of certainties and written an insightful book, Flash Foresight, on the subject. He lists some ways that you can know for certain that specific things will happen. He calls these hard trends. Items that may happen, but are not certain, are listed as soft trends.

A hard trend is a projection based on measurable, tangible, and fully predictable facts, events, or objects. A soft trend is a projection based on statistics that have the appearance of being tangible, fully predictable facts. A hard trend is something that will happen: a future fact. A soft trend is something that might happen: a future maybe. ~ Burrus, Daniel

Here are a few examples . . .

Hard Trends

• 78 million baby boomers are getting older. It’s a certainty that they…
  • Will have increasing health needs.
  • Will need to find alternate housing
  • Will transition out of the workforce

Soft Trends

• The use of computer tablets will increase
• The stock market will keep going up
• Customers will keep buying MP3 music files

As you can see, soft trends are based on what is happening now, but the future direction is not guaranteed, whereas the hard trends are certain to happen.

To help you plan out your next five years, I’ve put together a Five Year Goal Setting Worksheet

As you can see we have divided up the sheeting into four broad categories across the top, with three horizontal steps that include our goal, the trends that may affect the outcome, and the resulting modified plan. They are..

1. Personal and Family Goals
2. Professional and Business Goals
3. Fitness and Health Goals
4. Financial and Investment Goals

Five Year Goals: Creating a Plan

Here is an example of how you might fill out the Professional Goals Column.

Currently, you are finishing junior college and want to get a job as a bank teller and move up the ladder over the next five years. Looking at the trends, you see that bank tellers as a profession are in danger of being replaced. To fit in with the market trend, you look at the direction the financial services industry is going and see there is a high demand for some of the new investment products coming online.

Unfortunately, they require certification to be able to market them. You decide to go back to school, get certified, and leap frog your career to a high demand area. You jump at least one rung up your career ladder by taking the trend into account.

Overall

By researching and listing hard trends, both positive and negative, you can modify your goals and better prepare for the next five years. Instead of going forward in areas of great change unprepared, you’ll have the knowledge to make better decisions. I really wish I would have had this worksheet and a little foresight when I was in my twenties. It would have saved me a lot of mistakes and helped me be more diligent about what was really important.

Planning

Download the worksheet below and take some time filling out the goal section at the top. Then fill in the middle section with trends that may affect their outcome over the next five years.  Once you are done, create a simple written plan to achieve them. Use our examples above as a guide.

Download

5 Year Goal Setting Worksheet

Next…

In our next post, we’ll take a look at shorter-term goals and a unique calendar that will help us succeed in accomplishing them.

The post Five Year Goals: Your Friend Is The Trend. appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson

I want to come clean and be real honest with you. I struggle with to-do lists, productivity programs, and time management plans. While all these tools are great, at the end of the day, I feel like a failure more often than not. I truly struggle with how to get things done.

It’s not that I don’t try hard, but distractions get in the way.

You see, I have a lot of disruptive habits that rear their ugly heads all throughout the day. If I come near a computer screen, I automatically have to log in and check Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and of course, E-mail. If I hear a beep on my phone, I instinctively must pick it up and see what tweet, post, or e-mail has just come in. If I walk past a candy bowl, I must pick up a few and take them with me.

I know I’m not alone at this. You may find yourself succumbing to the same temptations.

Habits are formed when a cue causes us to CRAVE a reward. The minute we respond to the cue a familiar routine starts until we receive our reward.

Advertisers, marketers, and software companies know this about us, and put Cues in our way all day long.

Walk into your local mall. You’ll see temptations in all of the front windows, but the most insidious thing is the smell of the Cinnabon store at the end of the entrance hall, with the fan blowing the smell of hot and delicious cinnamon rolls to everyone who walks in. If this doesn’t get you, try driving down the street past the lovely green mermaid of Starbucks, or the tempting Golden Arches of McDonalds.

Once you see, hear, or smell the CUE, the craving will start. If you don’t get the intended reward, you’ll get frustrated. Sheer willpower can overcome some of these, but if you aren’t careful, you’ll be sucked in.

These habit loops play in our heads constantly… Cue, Craving, Routine, Reward.

I decided it was time to take action.

Instead of being a victim of these productivity killing bad habits I would create a new habit.

A habit so strong, it will overpower these common ones.

A habit built around a strong craving we all have.

A craving so powerful it will empower us.

Day after day, it will guide us.

Through thick and thin.

To WIN!

Yes ladies and gentlemen, I’ve taken our popular daily planner and done something so simple, yet so remarkable, it will take this lowly piece of paper to new heights.

This change is subtle but powerful.

I’ve taken our top six priority boxes and put a check box in each.

When you have accomplished a task you now have a place TO CHECK IT OFF!

This simple box will empower you through the day. Each time you see a task, the checkbox will instill a craving so strong you must take action. You will not be able to do another thing until you can take a pen and put an X in the box.

You’ll start with the top left box and work your way down. Each task has it’s own checkbox. Task after task will be accomplished. These insidious little boxes will drive you nuts if they aren’t filled in in a timely basis.

Your productivity will soar!

But that isn’t the best thing. I have one more driving force that will power you through the most difficult task. You see, when you get all six checkboxes filled in, you can go to the top of the document, where all the world can see, and click the WIN Checkbox!

You have WON the day!

You can fire up We are the Champions and dance around your desk.

You have done something so remarkable that it is worth celebrating.

You have completed all of your top six tasks for the day!

Finally an answer to the question: How To Get Things Done!

Everyone loves to win!

You can do this!

Download the TOP SIX DAILY PLANNER FOR WINNERS and get started!

Bonus: I’ve also added a daily diet tracker to the bottom. If you are counting calories, carbs, or weight-watcher points, you can track them here and WIN again!

Power Users: To get the most out of this planner be sure to pick up Charles Duhigg’s great new book, The Power of Habit and download our helpful Habit Change Worksheet.

Question: What tasks will this allow you to accomplish?

The post Use Our Helpful Planner To Finally Get Things Done! appeared first on Fire Up Today by John W Richardson