This post is part of a series on goal setting. If you’re just getting started with us, here is a link to all of these posts so you can start at the beginning!
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Once you have your weekly goals, it’s pretty clear to see what you need to accomplish in order to achieve your bigger goals, and where achieving those goals puts you in relation to your overall vision of your life.
So now, it’s time for the hard work.
Ok, it’s not really going to be that hard. In fact, it’ll be fun. This is a good time to reassess, in fact. It’s easy to write down a big goal for 2013, but when it comes time to do the daily work you’ll need to do in order to accomplish it, it shouldn’t seem like hard work. If it does, chances are, you’re still chasing a goal that isn’t really your goal at all.
Joy is the measuring stick here. If you’ve really followed all of these steps that I’ve been writing about for the past two weeks, these daily disciplines should bring about joy in your heart and your mind.
What is this talk about daily disciplines? I thought the law of attraction just meant that I think about stuff and it shows up! Of course not. You still need to do the work to get the things you want out of your life.
When I started my business selling insurance, there were weeks that I worked 70, 80, even 90 hours. And guess what? I didn’t feel tired. I didn’t get burned out. I didn’t even mind it. I loved it! I loved helping families, I loved talking to so many new people every day, I loved the people I worked with. Every bit of it was joy to me. And it still is.
Goals are about desired outcomes. They work on our subconscious mind to direct our intuition towards helping us achieve them. But in order to achieve them, there are certain activities that we’ll need to do on a daily basis.
Daily disciplines are just that. Activities. These are the things we’re going to do on a daily basis in order to achieve our weekly objectives.
Are you starting to see how this all fits together? Let’s look at an example of how this might play out..
Financial Vision: Earn enough passive income to allow me to take a year off of work to travel around the world.
Bucket List: Earn $1 Million of passive income in one year
2013 Goal: Start a business that will generate passive income and earn $25,000 from that business.
Quarterly Goals: Q1 – Identify business to start. Q2 – Set up business and begin operating. Q3-Earn first $8,000 in income. Q4 – Earn next $17,000 in income.
Weekly goals: Week 1: Interview two business owners who earn passive income. Week 2: Read about business ideas for passive income.
Daily Disciplines: Day 1: Ask Facebook friends for contacts with business owners. Day 2: Identify 5 potential contacts and reach out to ask if they’ll share some ideas with me. Day 3:
Now, if you thought about your financial vision being so large that you could make enough money without working to take a year off and travel around the world, that might sound completely unrealistic. But does reaching out to a few people to ask them for ideas on starting a small business that you want to earn $25,000 from this year sound unrealistic? I bet each of those daily steps would take 10 minutes at the most.
So what actions will you need to take for your goals?
I’ve had great success in my own life using the “First Five” system. Here’s how it works.
Each evening, as you sit down to review your day (we’ll discuss this more next week,) you’ll look at each of your goals. Then, list out five activities you can take that will move you one step closer to one of your weekly goals. Just five simple tasks. Look at your calendar and schedule times for them, so you’re sure that they remain a priority when you get busy and get tempted to skip one.
I make a habit of this every day, and it is singlehandedly responsible for much of my success. Here’s an example of what I wrote out one evening.
First Five
- Wake up at 4:45 and go to gym.
- Write next Tuesday’s blog post
- Practice guitar for 30 minutes
- Read “Brain Wars” for 30 minutes
- Come home from work early to play games with kids.
The next day, when I woke up, guess what I already had at my fingertips? The 5 things that I needed to do to move me towards reaching my goals. I knew, that as long as I got up and went to the gym, I’ve done something to move me towards my fitness goal for the week. As long as I got the blog post written, I’ve moved my financial and career goals forward. As long as I practiced guitar, I’ve moved toward my recreation goal. As long as I read my book for 30 minutes, I’ve gotten closer to reaching my personal development goal. And as long as I get home to play a few games of Uno (which I’ve been VERY unlucky at lately) I’ve moved towards achieving my relationships goal.
Are those five tasks going to take up my entire day? Of course not. As long as I prioritize these five things above the other busy work that is sure to come my way, I’ve made real progress towards achieving my vision.
If you’ve stuck with us so far, congratulations! Next week, we’ll discuss strategies to keep your motivation up when things get challenging. We’ll also reveal a few tools to activate your highest intuition and the law of attraction in helping you follow through on the achievement of your goals. Lastly, as we wrap up this series, I’ll lay out a blueprint of a perfect goalsetter’s day, and how to piece all of this together into a single successful day that you can easily repeat!
Today’s Action Step
Take a look at each of the goals you’ve set, and the first weekly benchmark. What do you need to do in that first week to reach that benchmark? What do you need to do on Monday? Write out your “First Five” activities that you’ll take tomorrow to move you in the right direction!
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Have a joyful day!
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