Having goals in our lives is important. For some, merely creating goals brings about a positive change.
When you make a goal, you are creating an exciting challenge for yourself. To make sure you meet that challenge with the right tools, you will need to do three things.
1. WRITE IT DOWN
The first step is to write your goal down on paper. This may seem like a simple step, but it makes your goal visible and tangible. Get out a clean sheet of paper, and write your goal down in clear words.
My wife and I have an inside joke… I tell her about various authors in my field such as Wayne Dyer who go on writing retreats for a month or two at a time to write a new book.
I’ll say jokingly, “If Wayne did it with a family maybe I could too.” She responds just as I would expect. “You can go on a writing retreat but we may not be here when you get back.”
The fact is there is no way I could go or would want to go on a writing retreat even if she was ok with it.
I think everybody needs to know “who is the best customer for me?” Here’s how you can generate a description of that individual.
List five of your best current customers. After you have them listed, describe as many characteristics of each one as you can. How do they do business; how do they think; where did they go to school; what information sources do they turn to; what level of financial success are they experiencing; how many different locations are they operating from?
Also note what resource they came from. Were they a referral? Did they come from a response to advertising or direct mail, or what?
At a Chamber of Commerce Business Card Exchange several years ago a well-dress woman walked up to me, business card in hand and, in perfect form held it in both hands in front of me, gesturing for me to take it.
I took the card from her and smiled. She looked up and in a polite voice, said “Thank you,” and walked away. How sad. Here was this obviously well-intentioned woman, who most likely owned an interesting business but never learned what to do at a card exchange.
It’s big but you can’t see it. So great that if you could see it you wouldn’t believe it. It’s your destiny and it’s calling you. If you don’t believe me just remember Albert Einstein. He could not speak until he was four years old. He did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was retarded. We know they were wrong.
Or how about Beethoven. His music teacher said, “As a composer he is hopeless.” Wrong again. And let’s not forget Muhammad Ali. His teacher once told him, “you ain’t never going to be nothing. He showed her and the world that he was the greatest after all. We all know Helen Keller’s story and we certainly all know our own story.
February 22, 1980. Lake Placid, New York – the host city for the 1980 Winter Olympics. The Soviet Union’s Olympic hockey team was set to play the United States Olympic team in an important game that would probably decide the gold medal. Yet, calling this a “game” was a stretch.
The powerful, professional Soviet hockey team had won four consecutive gold medals and was undefeated in the Olympic games since 1968. The U.S. Olympic hockey team was a collection of untested college players. The 1980 Soviet team was head and shoulders above all of the other Olympic teams.
The Lundy-Smiths are a remarkable family from inner-city New Orleans. Susie Mae Lundy and husband, Willie J. Smith, a Baptist pastor, raised nine successful children. According to FORTUNE magazine, the parents set an entrepreneurial example built around commitment, faith and hard work. Each child grew up with assigned responsibilities. By age five the six boys were expected to hose down and sweep the driveway of the family’s Exxon gas station and auto repair shop.
Larry Lundy, owner of 31 Pizza Hut outlets, says they knew that what the family ate at the end of the day was contingent upon what they did during the day. That kind of motivation is pretty easy to understand–and can be very effective.
Two thousand years ago on April 15th one of Jesus’ disciples came to him and said it was time to pay taxes (that’s how I know it was around April 15th), but they had no money. In response to his disciple’s statement Jesus said “no problem”. Now why could he say “no problem”? Well, word had it that Jesus was a miracle worker. If you hand a problem to a miracle worker what they are inclined to say is “no problem”. You’ve got to hang out with people like that.
If you can’t understand this one, you’re pretty stupid… See what I mean? Most of us know better than to call other people names and insult their intelligence.
Being assertive about our opinions and beliefs is fine, but at some point, assertiveness crosses over into bluntness. And that means you haven’t taken the other person’s feelings into account.
Find out if bluntness is a problem for you. To do that simply ask five of the people closest to you at home and at work something like: “Do I come across as too blunt sometimes?” “Do I say things that hurt other people’s feelings without realizing it?” If you get back some “yes” answers, then you need to pay attention to the ways you communicate.
Competence goes beyond having a specific expertise. It certainly means being knowledgeable and skillful in your field. But it also means possessing a problem-solving ability that goes beyond your own specialty. If you don’t know the answer, or how to fix the problem, with competence as an ability, you know how to go about getting someone who does. Competence means having a can-do attitude and following through on it.