Think about the money goals that you set at the beginning of the year. Now, I’m going to give you five areas, and I want you to write down what your goals were going into this year. How far along are we in the year right now? How are you doing?
It’s likely that you’re in one of three places – you are either blowing your goals away, or you are pretty on target, or you are going, “Holy heaven, I am so far behind. What am I going to do with myself?”
I want you to write down five words. The first one is money. Money is not the most important thing in life, but according to Zig, it is right up there with oxygen. But money is the most important thing in THIS conversation, because we are in business together and we work to make money; that is why we work.
The people who go, “Oh, no, no, I just care about making a difference,” I say with the sweetest of smiles on my face, “You lie about other things too, because if you are just working to make a difference, go volunteer at the hospital. The hours are more flexible, you don’t get paid, and if you are only working to make a difference, you don’t care about getting paid.” And I know that stinks. Some people go, “Ah.”
Listen, you can do both. They are not mutually exclusive; you can make a difference and make money. That is what I love about what I do.
So write down these five words – financial is number one, physical is number two, these are not in any order, I am just listing them. Third is relational, which is your friends, your family, community, relationships. Fourth word is recreational or balance; recreational kind of makes it easier to dream the dream and have balance. Then the last one is spiritual.
So financial is money; that is pretty easy one, right? We all understand what the word financial means. Physical means health and appearance because physical is both. Recreational means the things you do for fun, outside of work, what you enjoy, things you do for fun. Relational, family, friends, community, so it is making friends, keeping friends, building memories, serving your community, loving on your family, asking forgiveness from your family, forgiving your family, whatever, because there is a whole plethora in the world we live in today of family and the dynamic there.
Spiritual means having true 100% certainty that tomorrow has got a great plan for being better. Spiritual is having peace, it is non anxiety, it is non depression; it is the opposite of those things. It is really being certain God has got this. Now if you don’t even believe in God, then spiritual would be for you, “I’ve got to determine if He is real.” Okay, that is a good goal. So there are your five.
Remember the goal you set at the beginning of this year. We are not going to do all five, we don’t have time. So I am going to just ask you to choose three; there is no right or wrong, just choose three.
Based on those three areas, list some of the successes that you have had in the first part of this year. For example, if you chose physical, write it out in detail as much as you can; don’t just write, “I want to lose 50 pounds.” Write how you want to look, how you want to feel, if the goal was physical.
Money, how much do you want to make, and what are you going to do with it? Relational, memories, forgiveness, laughing, building new friendships, just whatever it looks like for you. Recreational, maybe you like to read, what books are you going to read?
Write as much detail as you can, only for these three; we are not doing all 12 core areas that I teach on, and we are not even doing the five that I asked you about when we started. We are doing three. Where did you want to be when the year started? Give as much detail as you can.
Once you have written that out, don’t worry about whether you are going to get there or not, and be honest with yourself. Don’t be gauging, “Oh I am not quite half way there. I better lower the goal.”
Now you are processing through your mind, “If this is what I set for the year, what do I have left to do?” There are three groups of people – there is the group of people blowing their goals away; there is the group of people who are all pretty on target, and then there is a group of people falling short.
Nobody that I just mentioned has to not achieve the goal; we can all achieve the goal. Yet big dreams need great systems. We believe in people and their dreams. But we are able to make your dream come true because we give you systems. Big dreams need great systems.
What I want you to think about now is… what is left to do? What action steps do you need to take in order to achieve the goal that you have set out for the year? If you are thinking about selling more, that is fine. But if you can get more specific, that will be good, because the more specific your plan can be, the more likely you are to achieve your goal. Think about how many you want to sell each day, month, week, and how much you want to make from the sales. Then you can make a plan. Be specific.
The way we used to say when we first started this company is that I am going to make you make money, I am going to make you make money. I like the way that sounds. I would say our message has really evolved.
When I first started, because I love the whole positive outlook thing, I just wanted to share people how to feel good. And I did that. Then I went, “I am not serving them. I have got to now start pouring into them how they can really grow their businesses and make more money.”
I realized we all need an accountability partner. Your accountability partner needs to have success in the area that you want to make money in. They have to have systems that they have used, that they can teach you, they need to be a cheerleader and they need to be somebody who will be honest with you. You need to meet with them at least once a month and the goals need to change every month, they need to grow forward every month.
I am in a group with one of the most hard-nosed guys that ever walked the face of the earth; he is tough, he is mean and he is grumpy. He doesn’t even qualify for the cheerleader position and he will tell you that. But I pay him a lot of money because I make a lot of money learning from him and the other group members. It’s priceless networking and so much knowledge is gained at each meeting, and I also watch my ROI on that investment so I know I’m getting the most from the experience.
To sum it all up, remember what your goals were and check in on your progress. Adjust your plan if needed, and keep moving forward. Find an accountability partner to help you stay focused, share ideas and encourage you when you need it. Let us know if you want to get hooked up with some extra accountability to make your dreams into reality.
Until next week, be thinking about your goals, and also be thinking, “What would it take to do ten times that much?”