Goals. There’s No Success Without Them.

Goals! Most people have vague goals of what they’d like to do or something they’d like to get. Successful people set specific goals and work to achieve them. There’s no secret to goal setting, it’s a simple but very effective process that anyone can do. If done correctly setting goals will raise your game and propel you forward, nearly as good as having your own personal trainer behind you urging you on. High achievers have certain characteristics in common; one of them is they all set goals. Top businessmen, sportsmen, artists and anyone seeking to propel themselves forward all set goals. So what’s the secret? The best way to set your goals is to use the SMART method. SMART is an acronym for;

Specific

The goal must be specific. No vagueness here. If you are unsure of what your target is you won’t hit it. Think deeply. What do you want to achieve. Don’t worry about how you will achieve it. That comes later. Just state what you want to achieve. Here’s a specific goal; “I want to earn £20,000 by December”, or “I want to lose 10 pounds by June”. These are two specific goals. If I say I want to earn some more money by December that’s a general goal. It’s too vague so it won’t hold your focus. Make your goal specific and give it a time frame. A time frame is crucial to forcing you to focus.

Measurable

You must be able to measure your progress. Put in place points you can measure. For example if I want to earn £20,000 by December I will break that goal down into smaller measurable ones. I could say I want to earn £1000 in January, £1500 in February. I am now creating measurable points that I can refer to. This will do two things. It will ensure I stay on track towards my greater goal. It will also give me a buzz when I achieve my smaller goal and instil me with confidence as I move towards the next goal. Each little goal you achieve will increase yourself belief. Make sure you can measure your progress as you head towards your big goal. This will keep your moral up.

Attainable

Make the goal attainable. Be realistic. When you have a goal that is realistic you will move towards it, and as you keep achieving the small goals that are leading to you main goal other opportunities will present themselves for you. This doesn’t mean that your goals should be easy. They shouldn’t. You should set goals outside of your comfort zone because this will raise your game, force you to excel and think of new ways to achieving it. For example, if I say my goal is to win the lottery on Saturday. It’s specific, it’s measurable but because it depends on factors well out of your control it’s not attainable even though it may be possible so it fails the criteria of a genuine goal.

Realistic

You must be realistic in your goal setting. You want to move outside of your comfort zone but the goal must be realistic. Set it high because this will force you to raise your game but keep it realistic. If I earned £15,000 from my business last year and this year I set my goal to earn £30,000, I’ve raised the bar, but it’s realistic. I then have to decide how I’m going to do it, I might raise my prices, employ new selling techniques, diversify my stock, the options are there for me to employ. If I say I want to earn ten million I’m not been realistic. You have to decide whether your goal is realistic. Make sure your goals are within your control. That they depend on your input to make them a reality.

Timely

You must put your goal within a time frame. This is crucial towards driving you forwards. If there’s no time frame there’s no sense of urgency. If my goal is to make £30,000 by December I will break that down into monthly goals. I will keep it all tightly encased within a time frame.

Check your goals against the SMART system, ensure they match the criteria and you will have more chance of success. Setting goals is a powerful way to propel you forward and energize you towards accomplishing your main goal. You will need to set lots of smaller goals. For example my goal to earn £30,000 through my business by December is broken down into twelve monthly goals. To achieve the monthly target I will need to increase my business so I will have other goals set to accomplish this. I will then break this down into a daily to-do list.

State your main goal then break it down into lots of small goals. Once you start achieving small goals you will become energized and more confident to move on to your next goal. Achievement feels good. By accomplishing small goals you are moving towards your main goal. By setting your goals this way, the main goal will not look so daunting. Get into the goal setting habit and drive your dreams forward.

Information Overload

There is just so much information coming at us today that it’s easy to become overwhelmed and suffer from that new phenomenon information overload. Before the internet, we got most of our information from books, magazines or by enrolling on courses. Today any information is only a Google away. You can get videos about how to do anything for free, read any report you want on your computer or get the latest theory about any subject.

This information highway is great. I can’t imagine life without it. It does however have its dangers. Here is the danger of going on a constant researching campaign, a danger of becoming overwhelmed with the sheer weight of the information available. I used to have Pdf books lined up in my computer about various subjects. I had so many that it would be impossible to read them all.

We don’t have the time to assimilate all this information and if we are undisciplined, we could become the computer version of the couch potato. Instead of flicking through TV channels, we click through web pages. Stopping here or there to read something before moving on. Until we realise we have wasted four hours of our life mindlessly surfing.

If you are going to start a business, part-time or full-time, your greatest asset is time. You will need to become productive and focused to ensure you make the best use of it. To do this you need to clearly define what your goals are for the day. I always have a daily “to do” list on my desk and tick each one off as I progress. Before finishing for the day I write out my “to do” list for the following day. This keeps me focused.

When I realised I was becoming overwhelmed by information overload I took action to remedy the situation. The first thing I did was delete all those e-books off my hard drive. Did I need them? No, so I dumped them, the same way I dump old books I no longer need. The second thing I did was stop aimlessly surfing. If I’m looking for information now I look with focused intent. I resist the urge to follow links to other pages that are unrelated to my original search. I stay focused on the goals because completing these will enhance my business in some way.

I’m not suggesting that you stop using the internet for pleasure. Not at all. I’m just pointing out the internet can be a great time consumer and as a business owner you need to leverage that time to advance your business and yourself. Once the hard work is done though, treat yourself with a little idle surfing. As long as you are in control, there’s no problem. The problems start when the computer is controlling you.

Test Your Idea With Ebay

A website is an essential ingredient of your business if you want it to grow and provide you with a good income but in the early days you can live without it. I didn’t get a website built until I had been trading for almost a year. By that time I had earned the money to pay for it so the business was financing itself. Below are some good reasons why you should start your business on Ebay.

• Ebay Has Done The Work For You

Once you open your ebay store you will have instant access to a market full of customers all looking to buy. All you have to do is get your products to them.

Repeat custom

If you provide good service and value you will get repeat sales as customers come back to you.

Ease Of store Management

Once you get your store ebay will provide you with a control panel that will give all the details about how your store is doing. Sales, statistics about who’s visiting your store, what’s selling well and a whole lot more of good management tools that you can use to optimize your store.

Cost

This one is obvious. You can get up and running with an Ebay store for a fraction of the cost of setting up a website. All you have to pay is the monthly store fee which at the time of writing is just less than £15.00.

Hit The Ground Running

Once you get your store stocked and open it you will hit the ground running. Buyers will come. Providing of course that you are offering value. With a website you will need time to promote it. On Ebay you’ll hit the market straight away.

Great Way to test your idea

This is the perfect testing lab for your products. You can theorise forever about what might happen if you try to sell a certain product. You can make forecasts and five year plans to your hearts content but the only way to see if your idea has legs is to put it to the market. Ebay is your ultimate testing ground. The battlefield where you can test your weapons under pressure.

Built In Marketing

Ebay stores have plenty of marketing options built into them like e-mail marketing and cross promotion of products. Essential tools that you need to get to grips with if you are going to be successful on the web.

Learning Experience

When you start a business you are going to make mistakes. Get used to it; it’s part of our human condition, part of the learning process. If you’re afraid of making mistakes then stay in your comfort zone. If you want to build an income however you’re going to have to try new things, go places you may not have been before. You won’t just be testing the viability of your products; you’ll also be testing how you manage yourself, how you cope under pressure.

If you are new to business then Ebay will provide you with a real live market place for you to test out your ideas without spending a lot of money. It’s the first step I would take if you are thinking of starting your own business.

Incompetence In high Places

Britain is now to all intents and purposes bankrupt. After years of corruption and greed from the professional classes the country is heading for complete meltdown. Any shred of credibility that the government and professional classes had left has been ripped away, leaving them exposed as a bunch of unethical, thieving, liars and robbers. The sleaziest people it was possible to place in positions of trust.

While the country is going down the pan faster than an out of control toboggan what are our MPs concerned about? How to help the poor? The pensioners who have been robbed of their savings? The growing army of decent people who are been thrown out of work? No. Our “honourable” men and women have been squabbling about having to reveal their expenses to the public. Even Gordon Brown chipped in with the opinion that we, the public, the paymasters, should not be allowed to see MPs expenses.

These people are not going to get us out of this crisis. They got us into it. The whole political charade that passes as democracy in this country has had its day. One party goes into power fills their pockets, the public get sick and elect their friends from the other side of the house who go in and fill their pockets, and so on and so on.

What has this post got to do with the theme of the blog middle aged people starting a business? My point is that we can’t trust these people to provide for our pensions. If you think they’re going to get us out of this mess it’s time to get the happy pills out. They don’t have the brains. Apart from that they are ok Jack; they’ve lined their pockets and secured their own pensions at our expense. They don’t give a damn about us. The only person who is going to help you is yourself. If you want to secure a decent retirement for yourself then you are going to have to do it. Take up the challenge.

Find Time

I hear this all the time from people who are going to start a little part-time business to pull in some extra income. They explain their plans in great detail and then go on dreaming but don’t act. They continue to walk around with the dream in their heads but have always got an excuse to take the decisive step and take action. The reasons they don’t act? It’s not the right time. They haven’t got time at the moment; they’re going to start after Christmas, summer…….and on and on.

It’s amazing how easy it is to find time when we cut out all the wasteful and pointless things we do with our time. Take surfing the net for example. This has now become one of the biggest time consuming activities in our society. The couch potato has been replaced by the internet potato. How many hours are wasted drifting from one site to another?

Cut out pointless surfing and you will suddenly discover that you have hours of spare time to use in productive activity. Then there’s that traditional time wasting activity, watching television for hour after hour. One program after another; hypnotized by the screen in the corner.

I’m not saying you need to cut out these activities completely from your life. Life’s not all about work. We need our relaxation time and there’s nothing wrong with laying on the couch and watching a TV program or surfing the net for entertainment. If you want to start a little business however you need to find the time to do it. Something has to give. You have to give something to gain something.

If you want to start a little business that will provide you with an extra income then you are going to have to find the time to do it. There’s no getting away from it. Just like you can’t get fit by sitting on the couch you can’t start a business without giving up something. If you’re serious about starting that business, about securing yourself an extra income then leave the TV, stop the mindless surfing and act.

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