Goals or Objectives Drive Everything
Ok, I get it, here we go with another business coach post about growing your business and they want to start out talking about goals. Geeze, why do people always bring up the topic of goals? You ask a great question. I’m always curious when was the last time you were at a basketball game and before the game they removed the basketball goals and just let the players dribble the ball back and forth down the court? Hopeful never, although in today’s crazy world, I would not be surprised if this has happened. If it helps, replace the word “goal” with “objective”. In a basketball game, the objective is to get the ball in the basket and score points. The objective of getting points is to win the game. The objective of winning the game is to win the championship. Do you see what just happened there? Goals or objectives drive pretty much everything we do, however, most of the time we are just unaware of this fact. If after work you go home and sit on the couch, eating chips and watching The Voice, then whether you realize it or not, your goal is to check out of life. The problem with this is a simple reality that most people don’t actually want that life, but they don’t set goals that will get them to the life they want. In fact, to take it even further, most people don’t even know what kind of life they want. Wayne Gretzke said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” and he is correct. But most people don’t even know what shot they want to take. It has been said that “If you don’t take the time to work on the life you want, you’re eventually going to be forced to spend a LOT of time dealing with a life you don’t want.” Trust me, starting with goals is essential because we have to invest the time into figuring out what we want so that it motivates us to work hard and we know when we get to where we want to be.
Know Your Goals
Clay Clark is a man who knows his goals. When he was young, he watched as his father worked incredibly hard for the family, but struggled to make any money. Because of this, Clay’s dad would be working all the time and was not able to spend a lot of time with the family. Clay determined that he would become a millionaire by the age of 30 and hire his dad to just be his dad so that he would never have to work again. Boom. Now there is a business coach person who knows his goals. He knew a dollar amount and what he wanted to use it for. He understood the “why” behind his goal and he had the drive to be able to figure out how to achieve it. Clay absolutely achieved his goal, even earlier than expected, and was able to check that goal off his list by hiring his dad. That is incredible. So how did Clay get to his goal? Well… he started by knowing what his big goal was. From there he worked backwards and broke it down into action steps. Just like in basketball, you start by having the goal of winning the championship. From there you break it down to winning games. Then you back up even more and focus on just making a basket. You start big and work backwards. Our life and our business work the exact same way. You have to figure out your goals and then break it down backwards until you have daily action steps that you can take every day.
What are Your Big Goals?
The question now becomes, what are your big goals? Well to help you on this journey, Clay always recommends that you go through the F6 goal process. F6 goals are your goals for your faith, family, finances, fitness, friendship and fun. You have to literally take the time to sit down with a pen and paper and put some thought into what you really want in these six areas. And as you navigate through them, you will find some to be more important to you than others during this time in your life. Additionally, you will begin to gain a better awareness of how much it will really cost to support the life you are building towards. For example, a lot of people who don’t know what they really want will settle for wanting to “make a million dollars” as a business coach goal. However, when they really take the time to break down the things they actually want to be able to afford, all they really need is to make three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This F6 process is not intended to be a quick decision where you throw out an idea and hope for the best. This process involves literally sitting down and putting some actual brain power into figuring out what you really want in each of these 6 areas.
Don’t Drift
Once that process is done, then begins the hard process. Now…. don’t drift off. Stick with me. You can do this. All you have to do is do it. Don’t make this process about feelings or some sort of lack of time. We make time for what we value. If you want to be successful, then just do it. Entrepreneurs and a business coach don’t sit around whining about what they have to do, they just do it. Now you need to take your big goals for each area and work backwards so that you know the daily action steps you need to take in order to get there. As an example, if you have a fitness goal to lose 20 pounds, then you start by setting a due date. From there you break down how much weight you need to lose per week in order to hit this goal. From there you determine how many calories per day that you will consume, along with what exercises you will do. Finally, you write it all down and put it somewhere you will see it every day. Finally, you just do the daily action step or steps that have been determined to be the keys to moving you toward your goals. Do this right now. Seriously….. NOW!
Work on Your Goals
Whatever your plans may be for the day, before you do anything else, you seriously do need to stop and work on your goals. What good is it to develop a business if you don’t know where you are headed or how you are going to get there? The life of an entrepreneur is very challenging and while hitting your goals is wonderful, getting to your goals is challenging. You don’t want to be successful only to find you have been building towards a life you don’t really want. In the tough business coach moments of your journey, you must be able to remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing. In order to remind yourself of this you must actually know your “why”. Your “why” is your goal. When Clay was building his first business, DJconnection.com, he faced so many challenges, from having no money, to working three other jobs to driving a car with no driver side door…. Seriously. The road ahead is hard and you are going to need the strength and will power to be able to tackle the obstacles, no matter what they are. In order to do this you must start with a goal-oriented mindset. Figure out your “why” and then eat, sleep and breathe that every day until you get there.
