Why is it important to set goals?
Having a goal enables you to focus your energies on devising
ways to achieve it. When someone makes a decision and begins
focusing on achieving a specific goal (and even better in a
specific period of time), the powerful subconscious mind goes to
work and begins playing with ideas and developing strategies of
various ways to bring about the successful completion of the
goal.
When you set yourself a goal both your conscious and
subconscious start working on it and begin to develop an action
plan. You will find you begin asking yourself questions about
what needs to be done to enable you to reach your goal. You may
find yourselves coming up with amazing ideas and solutions to
problems or obstacles that have been in the way of achieving
your goal. Solutions and ideas that you are surprised you ever
thought of may start popping into your mind. Our subconscious is
an extremely powerful tool. The more often you remind yourself
of your goal, the more your mind will work on ways for you to
achieve it. Some people find answers come to them when they are
asleep and dreaming.
Have you ever noticed that there is no correlation between being
wealthy and having a high IQ or a university degree? If there
were, every doctor and university graduate would be wealthy, and
as statistics show, most of them end up in the same situation as
95% of the population.
The main thing that the majority of independently wealthy people
have in common is that they have set goals for themselves and
achieved them. They invest time in reading and learning about
wealth creation and are happy to learn from other people's
mistakes and experiences, as well as their own. They set goals,
and realise that they will be far better able to achieve them if
they familiarise themselves with the ways in which other people
acted and the things that others have done to succeed. Wealthy
people create wealth by carefully utilising the income that they
have available to them to their best advantage. They know that
working harder and longer hours is not the way to achieve
financial freedom, instead they have to utilise what they have,
and make it grow. Setting Goals. When you begin to work out your
goals you need to make them as specific as possible. A vague
idea or generalization like "I want to buy investment properties
and become wealthy" is not enough. You need to be much more
detailed. "I want to own my first investment property within six
months. I will save for the legal and bank fees, and borrow 100%
of the value of the property. I will find an extremely well
priced, three bedroom brick veneer house that is close to
schools and shopping centres. It will be either brand new or
less than ten years old. It will be structurally sound, and
require a minimal amount of maintenance. I will find a good
agent to manage it, who has a lot of experience and will find me
a good tenant." This is a specific goal, and you could add a lot
more to it. Because your goal is specific your mind immediately
begins to ask questions such as "How much money will I need for
the fees and charges? How much does that relate to if I break it
down on a weekly basis? Will I have to look at my current
expenses to see where I need to cut back so as to make up the
difference for the amount I need to save?" Specific goals help
you to create specific, realistic action plans and as the old
saying goes, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail". You will
find that if you write down your goals on a piece of paper, and
put it in a prominent position, so that you will read it often,
your subconscious as well as your conscious mind will start
asking questions and coming up with answers, and you will find
that you have already begun to take the necessary steps to
achieving your goal. It is helpful to have a series of goals,
ranging from daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, ten yearly and
thirty to forty yearly. You can always refine and change your
goals as time goes on and situations change.
You may find that it is easier to start at the 40-year mark, and
then work backwards. Try to work out what steps would be needed
to achieve your 40-year goal, and spread them out over the
different time spans, to what you would need to achieve to end
up with the final result. Try to make your goals realistic and
achievable. Do not set a goal that is too hard. Set lots of
small, easily achievable goals and work step by step to achieve
your road to success. Stay positive. Believe in yourself and
your abilities to succeed, even if other people patronise you or
try to put you off, or tell you there is no point. Setting and
achieving goals help you to create a stronger character. It is
always helpful to remember that our brain cannot entertain both
positive and negative thoughts at the same time. If you stay
positive you will dispel negative thought patterns. Even if you
come across little obstacles that get in the way of your goals,
don't give up. Focus on finding a solution, rather than
focussing on the problem - utilise a positive response.
Focussing on finding solutions enables you to put your brain to
work, to find ways around things. If you just see an obstacle as
a problem and just accept that life has dealt you a blow, and
let it stop you in your tracks, then you will never learn and
grow. Remember that children learn to walk by falling over.
Focus on the long-term achievements that you want to fulfil, and
it will be easier to overcome your problems.