Lack of knowledge

Lack of knowledge shouldn’t stop you from setting a few goals to help pull you on your way to success. The “I’m not smart enough” personal mantra most people play in their head over and over should be turned off. You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. In fact, knowledge is overrated as a critical component of success.

Your formal education will help you make a living. Your personal education will help you make a future. I heard Jim Rohn say that almost 30 years ago when I was broke, hadn’t finished college, and was unemployed. And given the fact that I had graduated in the part of the high school class that made the top half possible, my prospects at that time were dim.

By continuing to read this chapter, the barrier of knowledge about goal setting and goal achievement will be removed. You will no longer be able to use that as an excuse to block your success. I give you the knowledge plan and a system of goal setting.

Fear of rejection

Some people fail to set goals and advance themselves because they fear being rejected by others. This is especially true in the case of family. For some families, they want everyone to stay together at the same socioeconomic class. They want everyone to be in one big happy poor family. When one of us climbs out, like a crab in a bucket, the other crabs grab him and pulls him back in.

As you set big goals for your life and then achieve those goals, there will be people in your life presently that you will leave behind. You will outgrow them as people. The small challenges that you have conquered will cause them to continue to struggle. The errors of judgement that you have put aside are the ones that they will keep making. You are likely to also outgrow their influence of you. That is honestly a natural happening in life. As you set higher goals and climb upward in life, it’s like climbing a mountain. A mountain is smaller at the top than it is at the base. There is less surface area, so there is less room for people. The fear of being rejected, an outcast, or ridiculed is a real emotion, and it's a barrier to goal setting and achievement.

Fear of success

The fear of success is real, and it's sometimes linked to the fear of rejection. There are people who come close to achieving their goals only to sabotage themselves just before accomplishment. Think of people you know who work hard to lose weight through a good balanced diet and exercise program. When they get close to their objective weight, they yo-yo back up beyond their previous weight. Are there experiences in your past where you felt you weren’t good enough? Has anyone told you that personally? Without putting those feelings behind us, we can be trapped in fear.

To set more effective goals, dig deeper into how you might feel when you accomplish your goals. Why do you want to achieve a certain goal? What will these goals do for you? Why do you desire to have this? What is the motivator to achieve this goal? Is it recognition, freedom, security, accomplishment, or respect? These are all valid powerful emotions and feelings, so embrace them to conquer your fears.

Fear of failure

Playing it safe with your goals and goal setting doesn’t serve anyone well. You can’t allow yourself to ask the “what if I don’t succeed” question. Ask yourself this instead: “What would my goals be if I was all but guaranteed to accomplish them?” If there was no fear and failure was not an option, what would you go after in life? Most adults have learned over time to play it safe. We don’t look for or even embrace failure for what it is: learning.

I had a mild obsession with the fear of failure until my late 20s. I thought that making a mistake or failing at something was a catastrophe. It was a root cause of my lack of success in my income and wealth to that point. That fear caused me to be cautious when I should have been trying new opportunities and using failure as a teacher.

Failure is a good teacher in life if you don’t repeat your mistakes. To play it safe without goals or big goals doesn’t protect you from the downside of failure. I almost guarantee that it will occur. Failure is an opportunity to start anew. It’s the confirmation that the way you tried doesn’t work and you are close to finding the solution.

Create commitment to your goals

The act of writing goals down on paper fires up a connection in your mind. I realize that most people today work on tablets, phones, and laptops. We type our thoughts into the software as it cascades across the screen. I believe that to increase commitment to your goals, you need to handwrite them on paper. There is a connection between the brain and our hands in writing something down on paper. Our minds retain, refine, and lock in thoughts, ideas, and goals so that they become more clear, compelling, and achievable.

Create a written journal of your goals. Carry this notebook with you and check off every goal once it’s accomplished.

Map out the most direct route to achievement

When you put your goals in writing, you’re setting your sights on the destination before you begin. Your life goals become the framework for how you prioritize and manage your time. We all need more focused use of our time so that we can achieve greater success. You begin the process of planning and strategizing about the steps you can take to achieve that goal. Your brain starts to look for the best, most direct route and the route with the lowest time investment. You engage your subconscious mind to work on figuring out solutions and strategies while you sleep. The subconscious mind will contemplate the goal, problem, or challenge, helping you figure out the most direct path to success. Thinking about the most direct route will help you order the steps into a system or strategy to create success.

Limit detours

Consider this saying: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” If you head off on just any road, you’re likely to end up in a place you don’t want to be. By documenting your goals, you can more easily gauge whether an effort is likely to bring you closer to or further away from them. With your goals in front of you, you make fewer wrong turns, invest less time in trial-and-error, and encounter fewer dead ends.

If you know that “be an outstanding father” is at the top of your written goal list, then overtime, extra work assignments, business travel, and other actions that take you away from your kids won’t distract you as easily. You know you’re more likely to achieve this goal by spending time with your kids, going to their games, taking walks, throwing a ball, playing dress-up, going to the park, having a tea party, or writing a note. These are all actions that bring you closer to being an outstanding father.

What do you want to have?

The question of what you want to have focuses on material acquisitions. What possessions do you yearn for? A swimming pool? A sailboat? Do you fantasize about owning a sports car? Do you dream of a formal rose garden landscaped into your backyard? Someone to cook and clean for you? Your own private jet? Winter vacations in the Caribbean? If your home environment is a priority, imagine the place you want to live. An expansive ranch overlooking the Pacific Ocean? A Fifth Avenue penthouse? An off-the-grid abode that runs on solar and wind power? A villa in Tuscany?

Although possessions are important to consider, they’re typically a means to an end: They enable you to create the lifestyle that you want to have. We all work to fund a specific lifestyle that we aspire to or currently have now.

One of the best goals I set and achieved was to own two houses, one as my primary residence and one to which I could retreat. The goal flowed from my childhood because my parents owned a second home that we enjoyed as a family. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood are attached to that second home at the Oregon coast. Once I achieved that goal, I wanted to spend more time there. That created in me a high motivation to work hard and advance my career further. It focused me to invest time during work hours so that I could enjoy spending long weekends at my second home.

What do you want to see?

When you ask yourself what you want to see, think experiential acquisition. Travel is likely to be a key focus. I’m certain you can easily come up with at least ten places you want to see. Have some world wonders fascinated you? The Pyramids of Egypt? The Great Wall of China? I travel internationally a few times a year on business, and it only fuels my desire to see more parts of the world and expand my awareness of how other people live.

I've found that exposure to different cultures and places in the world has a secondary benefit. Through world exposure, we can develop our gratitude and patriotism. It allows us to recognize how fortunate we are to live where we live. How blessed we are to have the lifestyle we have today. In the United States, even if you are on one of the lower rungs of wealth and earnings, you are rich compared to others in the world.

What do you want to do?

Most likely, many of your goals are connected with the question of what you want to do at some point in your life. Whereas the possessions that you want to acquire help create your lifestyle, the action-oriented question you consider here focuses more on bigger events and feats outside the daily realm. Because this category is vast, I have my clients consider three main aspects of this question:

• Activities: You may want to include some once-in-a-lifetime experiences, such as snorkeling with sea turtles or hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro. What about a goal of regular exercise four times per week? Or maybe you want to see Lady Gaga in concert.
• Skills: For example, have you always wanted to speak Spanish or Mandarin Chinese? Do you wish you could play the piano or electric guitar? Have you put off a new experience — snow-skiing, surfing, fly fishing — because you thought it was too late to learn? Whether these skills can enhance your career or financial state or are simply actions that bring personal pleasure, cast a wide net and list the ones that intrigue you most.
• Career: How do you want to seek fulfillment through your career? Be honest with yourself and sort out how you’d like to measure that success. Do you yearn to be recognized as the top authority in your field? To win an international award? To write an influential book?

What do you want to give?

Andrew Carnegie, the great steel entrepreneur, met his goal to amass a fortune in the first half of his life. His goal for the second half was to give it all away. Many of the public libraries in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom exist today because of his philanthropy.

An important way to balance all the want, see, and do items on your Fabulous 50 list is to include give goals as well. What are you willing or interested in giving back? How do you want to share your good fortune with others? Which causes are near and dear to you?

I personally have developed more philanthropy goals as I have aged. Perhaps that’s due to a higher awareness of the many blessings in my life. Or maybe it’s being more aware of the needs others have around me, or it could be due to having achieved more. My belief is this greater awareness is normal for a successful person. If you aren’t feeling very philanthropic, that doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means there are other goal categories that are more important to you in achieving first. A giving focus, as well as giving goals, can broaden your perspective and well-being.

Who do you want to become?

To a degree, what you want to have, see, do, and give determine the person you want to become. But you should still envision and write down how you see yourself developing while you achieve these goals. The real value of goals isn’t what you achieve; it’s in the accumulation of knowledge, skills, discipline, and experience you gain through learning, changing, improving, and investing yourself as you work toward your goals. Often, those newly discovered or carefully developed traits are the only lasting acquisitions that stand the test of time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that you become someone other than who you are; rather, I’m encouraging you to earnestly and honestly evaluate the characteristics and disciplines best suited for your ambitions. To identify the areas you should focus on, take a look at all the goals you’ve written down so far. (If you haven’t yet read the preceding sections, complete them before moving on here.) Then ask yourself the following questions when considering your goals as a whole:

• What personal characteristics do you need to change or improve? Do you need assertiveness training to deal more effectively with your boss or coworkers? Do you need to work on interpersonal skills? Does your anger get in the way of your success because you get frustrated so easily?
• What disciplines do you need to work harder at practicing consistently? Are you able to delay gratification and do what you need to when it needs to be done? Are you able to save regular amounts from your current paycheck, or are you waiting to make more money before you start the savings process? What if that extra money never shows up?

If you’re struggling to identify areas where you need to work on personal development, take a look at people who have achieved what you want; then evaluate your characteristics and disciplines as compared to theirs.

Categorizing your goals

After you assign a timeframe to each of your 50 goals, your next step is to assign a category to each one. Typically, your goals fall into one of six categories:

• C = Career
• H = Health
• F = Family
• M = Money/financial
• S = Spiritual
• P = Personal

When determining which category each goal falls under, you’ll find that some goals fall naturally in one specific category. A goal to get be promoted to supervisor at work, for example, is an easy C. Other goals, however, aren’t so easy to peg. Going back to school to earn an MBA may be a C for career, but it also may be a P for personal. Place the goal in whichever category you most closely associate with it, or feel free to place some goals in multiple categories.

Now go back through your list of 50 goals and write the appropriate category letter next to each one. After you label each goal with a category, count the total number of goals you have for each category and record those numbers in Figure 5-1. Then assess the spread of your goals across those categories to see whether they’re well balanced. Are you light on health goals? Should you pay more attention to your spiritual life?

Assigning a timeframe to each goal

I firmly believe you can have anything you want; you just can’t have it all at once and all right now. Just because you establish a goal to lose 20 pounds doesn’t mean you’ll wake up tomorrow with 20 pounds missing from your body. Realizing your goal involves a process that requires specific activity and time.

Remember that your Fabulous 50 list names goals that you want to accomplish within the next 10 years. That said, you may want to see some of them come to fruition much earlier. Some may be immediate — just a year away. Others may require you to first achieve some intermediate goals. For instance, say your goal is to double your income within 3 years. You know you’re unlikely to receive anywhere close to a 100-percent raise at your current job, so you start exploring other options: a new job that pays more and has a fast-track career path, a second job, freelance or contract projects that you can do on your off-hours, or a real-estate investment that brings in rental income.

Before you head to the next section, go back through your list of 50 goals (which you created earlier in “Establishing Your Fabulous 50”) and write a 1, 3, 5, or 10 next to each goal to indicate whether you want to achieve that goal within 1, 3, 5, or 10 years.

When you start thinking about the time you need to attain your goals, make sure you’re being reasonable. Whether or not the timeframe for your goals is reasonable depends entirely on your situation. To help you stay on track, follow these steps:

1. Consider the timeframe you’d ideally like to accomplish this goal.

   Would you be happy if you accomplished it one year or even three years later than your ideal, or are you intent on accomplishing it by a certain time?

2. Assess the complexity of the goal.

3. Determine what new knowledge or other resources you may need to accomplish the goal.

   See the “Pinpointing Your Resource Needs” section, later in this chapter, for guidance.

4. Consider what timeframe someone else needed to accomplish a similar goal.

After you label each goal with a timeframe, tally up the number of goals you have for each time slot and record those totals in Figure 5-2. Then assess the spread of your goals across those timeframes to see whether they’re well balanced.

Especially when finances are involved, keep in mind that you should enjoy the process of working toward your goals. Although planning for the future is important, you’re guaranteed only the present. You don’t want to rob yourself of all enjoyment now. Better to live a balanced life while you implement your plan and adjust it as needed when circumstances throw you for a loop.

Setting up your tournament brackets

You can create your tournament brackets in two ways: timeframe or category. In either case, the bracket should look like Figure 5-3.

Realizing who the winner is: You

In all this tournament playoff action, the true winner will be you. In fact, you have no way to lose unless you don’t do this. Most goal setting exercises stop at categorizing the goals. To create goals that pull you toward their achievement, you must prioritize. Focusing on what you want intently really moves you closer to success.

Determining the why

The why you want a particular goal is the power source to success. Once you determine the what you want and organize the categories, you have to dig deep inside yourself to understand why you want that goal or achievement. Some of the most powerful goals come out of childhood experiences that are ingrained over many years.

Think of the people who had challenging childhoods that involved constant poverty and struggle no matter how hard their parents worked. Their parents maybe lacked the education to be able to land a high-paying job, so they were forced to work multiple jobs to provide barely enough. That experience is such a powerful why to some that the goal of achieving an advanced degree consumes them. They have connected their education through a “big why” to filling the belly and providing a more stable lifestyle for the family.

It’s been nearly 28 years since my success and personal development journey began. I was in my late 20s when I first read Napoleon Hill’s landmark book, Think and Grow Rich. The book guided me to probe deep into myself to explore the why’s of my goals, aspirations, and motivations to achieve success. That book led me to other amazing books, speakers, and authors over the last few decades.

Since that time, I have become well known worldwide in the real estate sales arena as the guy who was able to sell 150 homes a year with a four-day workweek schedule. The truth is, that schedule was no accident. It was a goal of mine to work only four days a week since I was a child. And I accomplished that goal due to the power of why.

Here’s my story: My dad worked a four-day week when I was growing up. He was able to do that because of his successful dental practice. He was always around on Friday when I came home from school. But the biggest benefit came in the summer, when we left Portland every Thursday afternoon to spend three days at a second home on a lake near the Oregon coast. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of swimming, sailing, waterskiing, walking the beach, and playing at our lake house. I wanted to replicate that life exactly. As I built my real estate sales business, that desire drove my success. It led me to build a vacation home in Bend, Oregon, where Joan and I spent three days a week for more than five years until which time we moved into our vacation home in Bend full time.

Although my why happened to come from a positive childhood experience, keep in mind that reasons can just as easily come from a negative place. Either way, they’re motivating factors to keep you pressing on. Thousands of success stories have germinated from the seeds of abject poverty or personal tragedy.

When the why is large enough, the how becomes easy. The bigger and more powerful the “why” of your goals, the “how” or path to achievement becomes easier and easier as you progress. So why are the goals you selected important to you?

Using emotion to fuel the fire

Emotions are powerful drivers of success and goal achievement. If you can tie powerful emotional to your goals, you increase the odds of accomplishment. The emotions of excitement, recognition, status, exclusivity, disgust, and fear are just a few that can be used as a fulcrum to success. You can use either positive or negative emotions to drive you. The avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure can be used equally as well.

In my experience, the biggest, most powerful emotional driver is love. If you can connect love, especially love of others, to your goals as your key why, there is nothing that will block your path to success.

My father’s why, for example, was born out of his love for my mother, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My father’s goal was to earn enough income as a dentist to provide my mother with the most extraordinary life possible: to travel in a wheelchair to Mexico, Asia, Hawaii (annually), and many other locations — always with three sons in tow. But mostly, he wanted to be able to care for her in the home where she raised her children and provide her the best quality of life imaginable for someone in her physically challenged condition. He accomplished that goal for her whole lifetime. She never had to live outside of her home that contained the memories of more than 40 years of comfort, security, and family.

Increasing your capital

Most goals, if they aren’t about money, seem to require money: building your dream home, taking a cruise, sending your kids to an Ivy League school, opening your own coffee shop. Even a goal such as landing a job at a high-powered corporation, which seems to be about earning money, may require you to get some additional education or purchase suitable interview attire.

If you find that your goal requires capital, do your best to quantify the amount. Then determine whether you have enough money to achieve your goal or whether you need more. Ask the following questions:

• Do you have time to earn the amount needed to fund your endeavor?
• Can you borrow the money?
• Can you leverage another of your resources to balance the shortfall?

Expanding your knowledge

Knowledge can dramatically increase the prospects of attaining your goal in the time table you’ve established. Trial and error is a costly means to reach your destination — especially when it comes to time investment. So if you assess your success-list goals and determine that you need more information to succeed, ask the following:

• What, exactly, is the knowledge you need to realize your goal?
• What’s the best way to attain that knowledge? Formal study? Online research? Talking with experts?
• How long will gaining this knowledge take, and does it fit in with your goal’s timeframe?

Increasing your skills

For the fulfillment of many goals, additional skills are required. Don’t confuse knowledge with skill. Knowledge entails the gathering and processing of information in a way that you gain a deeper understanding of a subject. Skill involves putting that understanding into effective action. You can study the heart and understand how it works — even know how bypass surgery works to prevent heart failure — but you don’t want to perform such a procedure without having the skill of an experienced surgeon.

Examine your success list again to evaluate where additional skills may be necessary:

• What skills are required for each goal?
• Are these skills that you already claim, or do you need to acquire them?
• Are these skills that you can learn within the timeframe? If not, then how can you make up for that skill shortage? Can you find someone who has the skills and ask for his or her help?

Bringing in the help of others

Most people have accomplished what they have because someone else helped them along the way, so don’t overlook the people component as you tally up your resources. The right contacts can be valuable in helping you attain your goals. Consider that dream of working for the high-powered corporation, for instance. Knowing someone who works for the company — or who has inside connections — is one of the best ways to get your foot in the door.

But people resources can help in achieving other types of goals as well, from buying that cabin in the woods (Uncle Sydney always believed that real estate is the best investment) to learning to play the saxophone. (The waiter at the local coffee shop is only too happy to earn some extra money giving lessons.) Here are some questions to ask yourself as you evaluate your human resources:

• Do you know anyone who achieved a goal similar to yours, someone who may be willing to advise you?
• If you need additional schooling but are short on funds, do you know people who may be able to help you acquire the knowledge you need?
• Do you know someone who has the knowledge, skill, connections, or money that you need to reach your goal?
• Can you tap into your people resources and use the skills of someone else to compensate for skills you can’t attain yourself?
• Do you know someone who knows someone else who may be able to help you?

Think of ways that the people you plan to approach can benefit if you attain your goal. Can you compensate them monetarily for their help? Can you offer something in trade that has value for them? Even just asking for help and saying thank you in advance is enough for some people. (Though many times, people are more willing to help when there’s something in it for them.) If you can’t find anyone to help, you’re forced to take the personal education route. The good thing, though, is that lots of books, classes, and seminars are available to help you, so take advantage of them.