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Short Term Business Goals May Be
The Answer To Your Long Term Failures
By A Dawes I was
recently reading a personal finance blog where the author explained how
he had
paid all of his debts in full. His
initial course of action was to pay off the bills with the largest
interest
rates first. Unfortunately the bills with the largest interest rates,
were also
the biggest of the bunch. And he ended up becoming discouraged because
the
bigger bills took much longer to pay off. So he
changed his course of action and worked on paying off the smallest
debts first.
Seeing the smaller bills getting knocked off quickly gave him the
motivation to
keep moving towards paying off the larger bills. As a result of this
strategy
he eliminated $35,000+ in debt. A major achievement indeed! Not only
is this a wonderful guideline for freeing yourself from debt, it's also
quite
beneficial to adopt as you're working on your business goals. If you're
one of those people who gets easily excited about tackling a large goal
- only
to stop midway because it's not as easy as it looks, then focusing on
more
short term business goals will help you reach a greater level of
success. Whether
you're working on a long term or short term business goal, you need a
plan. And
for short term business goals you need a plan that's specifically
designed to
work within a smaller time frame. Here are
four steps to help you do just that: 1) Choose
reachable goals only. If you've
never made $20,000 in 30 days, and the concept of making large amounts
of cash
in short periods of time is completely foreign to you, then don't
choose that
as your short term business goal. Nine
times out of ten you're going to fail because you'll have to overcome a
mental
hurdle. And that task of confidence may take longer than 30-days. Now hear
me out... I'm saying this to take the wind out of your sails. On the
contrary,
I believe you should be using your greatest strengths when pursuing a
short
term business goal. You should feel confident about the task at hand,
not
intimidated by it. And the
only way to do that is by choosing goals that fall within the realm of
possibility. You should feel that even if this wasn't a short term goal
experience, you'd still be able to achieve it. 2)
Determine a time frame for completion. A short
term business goal should have a deadline that spans 30-days or less. I
personally prefer tighter deadlines because they prevent
procrastination and
they don't give me the luxury of over-thinking a process (otherwise
known as
"analysis paralysis"). Whenever I have a smaller than usual deadline
I know I have to get my creative juices flowing and jump right into a
course of
action. Surprisingly,
this forced rapid thinking process has delivered more positive results
than the
work I've done when I've had a lot of time to spare. 3)
Eliminate a distraction - (or two, or even three). I have a
new found habit - watching the home shopping channels. The deals that
can be
found are deliciously stunning. However
when I'm working on a short term business goal, I simply don't allow
myself the
luxury of watching my new favorite television channels. And when I've
allowed
myself to indulge, I get sucked into watching an hour-long segment when
I
should be working. Even five minutes here and ten minutes there can
easily add
up to several wasted hours at the end of a week. Maybe
your mindless distraction falls in the form of celebrity tabloid
magazines.
Perhaps it's an hour of video games every night after dinner. Or
aimlessly
wandering the aisles of your favorite beauty supply shop - (which I'm
guilty of
too!). Whatever
it is, stop. You are hereby not permitted to engage in this distracting
activity until your short term business goal has been reached. 4) Eat a
piece of the elephant every, single day. With the
exception of death, extreme illness and religious purposes, short term
business
goals should be pursued on a daily basis. NOT every other day. NOT on
the
weekends only. I'm talking every day. Like clockwork. The
problem most people have is that a one-day break yields another one-day
break.
And once you skip two days, the third is a given. Before you know it,
your
deadline has passed, and you're caught like a deer in the headlights. Short
term business goals are meant to be pursued with full force. Whether
that means
you've gotta wake up an hour early and go to bed an hour late, do it.
Do it
every day until your job is done.
If you would like to know more about
Setting Goals
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