It’s time to start planning on ways to cope with the challenges of tomorrow. Start with your own goals. Set a time frame and financial framework within which you intend to implement action to achieve them. Understand the rules. Learn what to do and what not to do. Like the cop said to the man who asked him: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” – PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
Once you’ve gotten your plan down on paper and internalized, and winning principles incorporated into your methodology – START DOING IT! Resolve to find your place among those at the top of the heap whatever the challenges; and to stay there. That’s a broad overview of the goal-setting process, but setting detailed financial objectives can be a time consuming procedure. Here are some tips.
Think of goals as promises you make to yourself in private. They’re day dreams put into action. A universal truth is that you’ll rarely exceed your own expectations of yourself. So you have to deal with what kind of a person you want to become – you’ll need to devise sort of an ethical and moral framework within which you want to work so that you’ll feel good about yourself at the end of the trail, once you’ve managed to climb to the top of the financial mountain.
1. WHAT ARE YOUR LIFE OBJECTIVES IN TERMS OF PERSONAL AND FINANCIAL GROWTH?
2. HOW MANY YEARS ARE YOU WILLING TO WORK FOR THESE COMMENCING WITH THIS CLASS?
3. HOW DO YOU INTEND TO ACHIEVE THIS? BE SPECIFIC AS TO WHAT YOU’LL DO, AND HOW YOU’LL DO IT.
4. WHAT SACRIFICES ARE YOU WILLING TO MAKE IN TERMS OF YOURS AND YOUR FAMILY’S LIFE STYLE?
5. DO YOUR PLANS INCLUDE OTHERS IN YOUR FAMILY? ARE THEY IN ACCORD? WILL THEY HELP OR HINDER YOU?
HOW? WHEN?
6. WHY DO YOU FEEL YOUR OBJECTIVES ARE WORTHWHILE?
UNTIL YOU ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE COMPREHENSIVE, ACCURATE, PRECISE, WELL CONSIDERED ANSWERS TO THE ABOVE QUESTIONS, YOU’LL HAVE A TOUGH TIME ACHIEVING LONG TERM FINANCIAL SUCCESS!
If these questions make you feel uncomfortable, then they’ve done their job. Consider how many people spend their entire lives wandering aimlessly with little feeling of solid accomplishment because they’ve never set goals for their own happiness. When you finish reading this book, see if you can’t work out a realistic course of action for yourself and your family.
It is estimated that about 3.5% of Americans are millionaires. Except for those who have harvested a fortune from stock market speculation, the vast majority of the others were entrepreneurs. So to get rich, plan on becoming an entrepreneur by starting up and running your own business. Don’t consume your capital and Profit; reinvest it to help your business grow.
WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!
Whether we fail or succeed, we first do it conceptually. Ultimately, thinking people work to fulfill their expectations of themselves rather than merely for money.
Think of life as a journey that extends from birth to death. Both the start and finish of the trip are clearly marked. Everyone starts at one point and proceeds toward the other. The only thing we don’t know is the route we’re going to take. Planning this trip to make it as enjoyable and entertaining as possible is the challenge that all truly successful people must ultimately meet.
When you set out to acquire your first dollar, your financial life starts. Your investment life begins the day that you use the first dollar that is surplus to your economic needs to buy something to produce income or profit at some point in the future. Both your financial and investment lives end when your last dollar has been spent, lost, strayed, stolen, taxed away, gifted, or bequeathed to someone or something.
In the final analysis, the way in which you use your assets to bridge the gap between your first and last dollars is the key to how successful you’ll be, not only in financial terms, but in the degree to which life is rewarding to you, your family, and those who ultimately benefit from what you achieve.
Here are 10 more questions you might want to ponder:
1. How much will you sell me, or anyone else, a year of your life for?
2. What would you pay to buy back last year and be a year younger?
3. Are you selling the next 12 months, or using it up to follow pursuits that will yield you less than you’d pay to buy it back?
4. What could you do to make your time worth more this next year?
5. What do you want to accomplish for yourself for the rest of this year?
6. Where will you be living?
7. What will you be doing?
8. Who will be with you?
9. In five years?
10. In a Decade?
Once you arrive at the answers to those questions, the next step is to lay out a written plan to assure that your personal predictions come true. Those who spend the time to write down the things they want to achieve in their lives know the joy of accomplishment that only goal-setters attain. Conversely, those who don’t plan their climb to life’s pinnacle rarely reach it. The hallmark of the loser is that he daydreams of doing wonderful things for mankind during his life, but doesn’t ever accumulate the financial wherewithal to accomplish anything.
Reaching goals almost always involves making enough money to be able to devote time to non-financial pursuits. This process can’t be done from a. lofty perch in some ivory tower. You’ve got to plan your financial life and pursue the goals you set just as vigorously as you plan your family life. Here are some goal-setting tips to help you get started:
GOAL SETTING SECRETS FROM A TO Z
a. Don’t talk yourself out of becoming an achiever. Develop a positive self image.
b. Let your imagination run free – in any direction and to any heights.
c. Build in a philosophical point of view – to thine own self be true.
d. Make it FUN! You’ll work harder and better doing what you truly enjoy.
e. Don’t let anyone else keep score in YOUR ball game. They’re YOUR goals!
f. Don’t compromise with goal setting among family members. Let them each set their own personal goals.
g. Once each person has set his/her goals, see how all can help each other.
h. Aim with a rifle, not a shot gun. Be specific. Focus your effort.
i. Write you goals down on a list. Read and review them the first thing each morning and just before sleeping each night.
j. DON’T SHARE YOUR GOALS with anyone except involved family members.
k. Arrange necessary tasks in logical sequence necessary to meet each goal.
I. Plug in HOW and WHEN – to accomplish WHAT, WHO and HOW MUCH.
m. Set priority levels and sacrifices you’re prepared to endure to succeed.
n. Identify the means and tools you’ll need to acquire in meeting your goals.
o. Invest in your own success – with your time, money, emotion and life style.
p. Use a critical-path chart on which you can plot your mile posts and timing sequences.
q. Set interim and short-term objectives to meet your needs. Be practical.
r. Establish GO – NO GO points by which to determine feasibility of methods.
s. Provide for alternative routes and by-pass methods if one approach fails.
t. If you must divert from your course, plan ways to get back on the track.
u. Don’t abandon long-term objectives – instead, modify short term methods. Find a way to make them work.
v. Don’t be side tracked. Let your goal list guide your decisions.
w. Don’t allow others to substitute their goals for yours – avoid committees. (Read Harry Browne’s book: “How I Found Freedom in
an Unfree World”.)
x. Record your progress. Scratch off each interim goal as you reach it.
y. Give yourself an “attaboy” and a bonus when you pass each mile post.
z. Keep challenging yourself to reach out – to be a more fulfilled, better person.
There’s nothing new or revolutionary about these hints. They’ve worked in one form or another since the dawn of time. If one studies the lives of successful people, one sees certain similar ingredients: self discipline, desire, commitment, honor, purpose, challenge, self-sacrifice, study, and persistence. And why not? All of these are controlled by the individual, not society. Thus the seeds of success lie within each of us.
From Jack Miller’s FORTUNE BUILDING CONCEPTS BOOK
