Today it’s all about goals.
Having the right goal is very important
Because
It keeps you motivated and remind you why you are doing whatever you are doing
It let you check whether you’re progressing on the right track or not
And
It helps you prioritize your tasks in the right order
Believe me...
Your success is only as good as your goals
I’ve seen a lot of people are stuck when it comes to picking their goals
It’s not easy to set the right goals...especially when you are starting.
Instead of telling you how to set goals…
I’ll walk you through how I did it and list the takeaways.
When I started blogging, all I wanted was to make some quick cash…
Because I just learned about Adsense and how everyone is getting massive checks from Google
It didn’t end well
I didn’t know how to get traffic, visits, and clicks
And like most of us, I asked my friends to click on the ads…
You all know how it would’ve ended...the Adsense account got blocked.
Then I decided to learn about getting traffic, visitors, and clicks.
That was a decent goal…
It motivated me to learn SEO, Adwords, Facebook Ads, and blogging.
It helped me to land jobs on hot startups and earn well
But it wasn’t the perfect goal…
Because
I didn’t get the satisfaction of achieving something…
I felt something was missing…
That’s when I realized
It isn’t what I wanted or dreamed
I didn’t want to keep working forever
I want to be an entrepreneur...build a business and grow it big.
I felt I got it right this time.
That’s what you should do.
Takeaways:
Before picking the goal
-Think about your dream…
-What do you want to achieve in your life?
-What will give you happiness and satisfaction?
-Write everything down
-Then order them in the sequence that makes sense to you.
But, don’t set too many goals.
Remember…
Goal setting isn't about what you'd like to talk about.
It's about who you want to become and what you want your life to feel like.
2 years before I realized jobs are not for me…
I wanted to quit the job and become an entrepreneur.
I knew it’s not as easy as the sentence I wrote.
I’m married, have a kid, and got used to a certain lifestyle.
I just cannot quit the job and pursue my dream…
First, I need to be sure that I can earn as much as I’m making from the job
At the time, I wasn’t making much from my blog.
An occasional cheque from affiliate programs is not something you can depend on.
But, I was getting a decent traffic to the blog.
I need to find a repeatable method of making money from the traffic.
I decided to create products that I can sell to my visitors.
That has become my short term, smart goal.
Before the end of 2016, I have to create and sell a product to my visitors.
To sell, I need to grow the email list and Facebook audience.
Takeaways:
You need to be honest and realistic with your goals.
Most people fail to achieve their goals because they didn’t factor their situation and limitations.
It’s not that you have to change the goals if they sounded impossible considering your situation and limitations
You need to find the right approach to achieve them
And break the grand goal into smaller ones.
I broke the grand goal ‘quit the job and become an entrepreneur’ into three small ones
Grow the email list
Grow the Facebook audience and
Create and sell a product
[I’m not going deep into how I achieve all these goals as it’ll lengthen this email. Maybe, I’ll record them in a blog post]
First I created an ebook and sold 100 copies.
Then I created a course and sold to 200 people.
These two events gave me confidence that I’ve identified a right niche and I’m on the right track.
But, I need to be 200% sure...
I launched couple more courses and sold each to 300 people.
Now, the idea is thoroughly tested and validated.
All I have to do is scale it up.
So, I quit the job and began my entrepreneurship journey.
Now, at the beginning of 2018, I’m running my own business and planning it’s growth for the next 10 years.
And, finally, I’m pursuing the goal that gives me complete satisfaction.
There’s still a long way to go before I can conclude ‘I’ve succeeded.’
But for now, I’ve done well enough to achieve most of the goals I’ve set.
Takeaways:
Don’t blindly pursue any idea.
Before investing time and effort, test whether the idea will work.
If it works, see whether you can replicate it again to validate.
Once validated, do everything you can, and you need to scale it up.
Don’t relax or feel elated at the first success
Because…
It’s just the beginning…
And there is a long road ahead to success.
