Writing down your Dreams and Goals is an important first step towards achieving them. First, because by writing them down it forces you visualize your Goals. And second, because the act of writing them down creates a commitment on your part. Only about 5% of the population actually takes the time to write down their Goals and Dreams. Maybe that is why so few people actually are living the life that they would like to be living.

Writing down your goals creates the roadmap to your success. Although just the act of writing them down can set the process in motion, it is also extremely important to review your goals frequently. Remember, the more focused you are on your goals the more likely you are to accomplish them.

Here are the four rules of writing goals down:

1. Write your goal in the positive.

Work for what you want, not for what you want to leave behind. Part of the reason why we write down and examine our goals is to create a set of instructions for our subconscious mind to carry out. Your subconscious mind is a very efficient tool, it can not determine right from wrong and it does not judge. It’s only function is to carry out its instructions. The more positive instructions you give it, the more positive results you will get.
Thinking positively in everyday life will also help in your growth as a human being. Don’t limit it to goal setting.

2. Write your goals out in complete detail.

Instead of writing “A new home,” write “A 4,000 square foot contemporary with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths and a view of the mountain on 20 acres of land”.
Once again we are giving the subconscious mind a detailed set of instructions to work on. The more information you give it, the more clear the final outcome becomes. The more precise the outcome, the more efficient the subconscious mind can become.
Can you close your eyes and visualize the home I described above? Walk around the house. Stand on the porch off the master bedroom and see the fog lifting off the mountain. Look down at the garden full of tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers. And off to the right is the other garden full of a mums, carnations and roses. Can you see it? So can your subconscious mind.

3. Write in presence.

Write your goals down in the present tense. This is because the unconscious mind chooses a path of least resistance. If you write, “I will be slim” the unconscious mind does nothing thinking that the will be may be postponed until later.
A friend had a business, which was losing money. He set his goal to break even the next month. Every month the next month would come and be this month so his goal would be true to break even the next month, which would never come. Eventually he changed his goal to, “I am breaking even this month.” That very month he broke even for the first time.
Write them in present tense, first person, as if they are currently true.

4. Re-write your goals.

When the words are written and then repeatedly re-written they have maximum impact.
So don’t be content with a first draft.
Write down your goal. Then rephrase it, compact it, add motivating adjectives, make it pithy. A week later you may want to adjust it again. Keep on fine-tuning.

Writing your goals down is the first step to make the goals more real. Somehow having things in writing really makes them seem more important to most people. It will also make it easier to make the plans needed to reach your goals if you have something in writing.
Putting it in writing breathes life into it making it a force which cannot be easily stopped.

“Life’s a long, long journey” so we are told, and most of us would not set off on a journey, even a short one, without some idea of where we wanted to go. Yet many people travel on life’s journey with no sense of direction at all.

They travel the by-ways and highways of life taking side roads, detours, even re-tracing their tracks from time to time, and while they may have exciting experiences on their journey, while they may meet interesting fellow-travellers, learn a great deal and see some pretty scenery, they may also be disappointed when they reach their final destination in life.

On the other hand, those life travellers who do have a clear knowledge of where they want to go, who can point themselves in the right direction, and who know when they want to arrive, travel as the Romans did, in straight lines and with great efficiency.

Most of us have careers to think of, futures to secure, people to provide for, things to do. We need maps! We need direction. We need an itinerary. In other words, we need to set ourselves goals.

Benefits of personal goal setting:

• Clear and focused direction giving a sense of security and purpose.
• Maximum use of time.
• Enthusiasm is high for what you want.
• Moving steadily towards and achieving the results you really want and ultimate success.
• Boosted self-esteem, confidence and belief in your ability to make things happen and feel in control.

Research (Damon Burton, 1983) has shown that people who use goal setting effectively:

• suffer less from stress and anxiety
• concentrate better
• show more self-confidence
• perform better
• are happier and more satisfied.

Choosing Your Personal Goals

When you are developing your goals, you’ll want to give yourself a peaceful environment so you can brainstorm. And, you do want to brainstorm, which means: you write it ALL down, and you throw out nothing, no matter how ridiculous it sounds. When you try to mix brainstorming and practicality, you always lose the benefit of brainstorming. You’ll have time later to be practical with your list.
Sometime during this brainstorming exercise, you ought to do like Steven Covey recommends and visualize your funeral. What would be said about you if it were held today, and how does that differ from what you really want to be said about you? Did you leave your family with a financial situation that you really want them to have? From my own experience, I mustily sadly suggest that you also visualize the funeral of your dearest loved ones. You may think you are being as good to your family as you can be, but I assure you that you will wish you had done far more for them if you lose one of them.

Dream of everything you want, and have always wanted in every facet of your life.

Consider what you would do if you had no limitations. Consider what you would do, be, have if money and health (for example) were not obstacles for you. Also, think about the people you admire and what it is that they have, do, and are that you want to emulate. Note that you might even want to consider one of these people to be your mentor, to help you think through these areas (at least partly), and to tell you what he/she has found to be effective for them.

One convenient way of creating your list of goals is to fill in the blanks under the following categories:

• What you want to BE
• What you want to DO
• What you want to HAVE
• What you want to GIVE
• What you Don’t want to BE, DO, HAVE, and GIVE

To give a broad coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in all of the following categories:

Financial and Career
Do you enjoy your work? Do you feel you are making a contribution to society? Are you living up to your potential? Have you achieved a satisfactory standard of living? Have you planned for your children’s education? What about your own retirement?

Social and Cultural
Does your circle of friends enrich your life and contribute to your sense of fulfillment and well-being? Is there at least one other person with whom you can discuss important life experiences? Do you have interests outside of your career and family (e.g., sports, theater, outdoor events)?

Spiritual and Ethical
Have you ever articulated specific personal values to yourself? Are you living up to those personal values? Is religion important to you? If so, are you happy with the way you are practicing your religion? If not, have you reconciled your relationship with a higher power or with the universe in general?

Family and Home
Have you realized your dream in terms of your home and family relationships? Be sure to use your own personal standards rather than society’s standards.

Mental and Educational
Did you accomplish the educational goals you set for yourself following high-school graduation? Are you still growing and learning? Do you invest in your continuing education on a regular basis?

Physical and Health
How satisfied are you with your current level of physical health? Are you living up to your own standards in terms of diet and exercise? Are you fit enough to do the things you want to do?

Once you’ve brainstormed your list of goals (which you may want to do over the course of a couple of days or weeks), then you can play Mr./Ms. Practical with the list and weed out the ones that just don’t make sense. One way of thinning out the list is to ask, for each goal, “Why do I want this and what good will it really accomplish?” When you find a goal that doesn’t have a good answer to this question, you’ve found a goal you can toss.

Also, as you go over your list of goals, you ought to think about how to prioritize them. Not all goals are going to be equally important. You can prioritize them by area (Personal, Family, Spiritual, Professional, Financial, so forth), with each area having a Priority 1 and a 2 and … Or, you can prioritize them absolutely, with respect for area, as 1 through 109 (or whatever). I vote for prioritizing by area, since priorities change too much as your life circumstances change. (It’s a lot easier to make minor mods to one or more areas than to have to redo your whole list of priorities based on changes in your circumstances and preferences.)
Be sure to set big goals as well as multiple goals. Big goals force you to reach in and use the potential that is inside of you. Long-range goals help you to overcome short-range failures. They can also help you to change your direction without going back on your decision.

Whether or not they ever reach the goals they have set, people who set big, long-range goals have been found to have higher self-confidence, higher self-esteem, and greater personal motivation. The bottom line is that more than half the rewards and benefits achieved from goal-setting comes from actually taking your first step in that direction, regardless of the consequences.

Develop The Plan
Then, it’s time to buckle down to turn the list into action steps.
Decide which goals are to be long-term goals and which are to be short-term and which fall somewhere in between. Then, starting with your short-term goals, visualize what it will take for you to accomplish the goal. This will help you in breaking the goal down into steps. Of course, you also need to set deadlines for each of these goals (and steps).
If any of your goals address making a change of habit, you should note that many researchers have found that it takes about 21 days to change a habit. You’ll want to factor this into your planning. Also, when changing a habit, you’ll want to find ways to give yourself positive reinforcement for making changes.

There is a very simple five step process that you can go through to set any goal whether personal or professional. To be effective, the goal you choose must include all five of the following steps:

• Identify your goal by writing it down
• Set a deadline for the achievement.
• List the obstacles to overcome in accomplishing your goal.
• List the skills and knowledge required to reach your goal. What do you need to know?
• Develop a plan of action to reach your goal.

Staying On Track
Once you have decided your first goal plans, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis. Some people recommend doing this as the last thing done the day before, others as the first thing done in the morning - this is up to you. Periodically review your other plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities.
Constantly Evaluate Your Progress
Having an action plan is not enough. The captain will have to constantly evaluate his progress in order to be sure he is on target. Unforeseen obstacles are sure to arise, such as a hailstorm, or increased southerly winds. As a result, he may have to increase his speed or guide the boat in a more westerly direction. In other words, notice what is working and what is not. If an approach is not working, don’t waste your time with it.

Change your approach.

Never Lose Sight of Your Goal
Take the time to review your goals every morning when you get up and every night before you go to bed. This will keep them fresh in your mind. If you think reviewing your goals twice a day is too much to ask, maybe you should reevaluate what it is you want. Ask yourself, “How important is it to me that I attain my goals?”

Don’t Procrastinate

• Procrastination is a “silent killer”. Understand that the only way to achieve your goals is to take action! Knowledge means nothing if you don’t apply it. How many people have you come across with an unbelievable amount of education working a mediocre job? The world is full of people who don’t apply their knowledge. On the other hand, chances are you know of people with less educational background who apply everything they learn. These people are usually the ones who are most successful in all areas of their lives.
• Do something right now that will help you to achieve your goals. There is no time like the present! Get the ball rolling. Each step you take brings you one step closer to the life you want.
• Remember the motto, “The road to Someday, leads to the town of Nowhere”. Someday is today!

Finally, you ought to have your key goals in front of you on a regular basis. You should look at them at least weekly to ensure you are making progress and to see if you need to modify your plans in anyway.

There are various ways of accomplishing this periodic review and planning activity. A simple one is to have a memo set up on your Palm or PocketPC in which you have listed your key goals, so that you can review the memo periodically. Of course, you should also have ToDo items set up for each of these key goals.

Another way of organizing your goals is to use a project planner or a database manager.

Achieving Goals
When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you have made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately.
With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans:

• If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goals harder
• If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little easier
• If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so
• If while achieving the goal you noticed a deficit in your skills, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Failure to meet goals does not matter as long as you learn from it. Feed lessons learned back into your goal-setting program.
Remember too that your goals will change as you mature - adjust them regularly to reflect this growth in your personality. If goals do not hold any attraction any longer, then let them go. Goal-setting is your servant, not your master - it should bring you real pleasure, satisfaction and a sense of achievement.

Achieving goals requires planning.

A plan is like a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have progressed towards your goal and how far you are from your destination. Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to do next.

One more reason why you need planning is again the 80/20 Rule. It is well established that for unstructured activities 80 percent of the effort give less than 20 percent of the valuable outcome. You either spend much time on deciding what to do next, or you are taking many unnecessary, unfocused, and inefficient steps.

Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs during each action step with your time, money, or other resources. With careful planning you often can see if at some point you are likely to face a problem. It is much easier to adjust your plan to avoid or smoothen a coming crisis, rather than to deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected.

Step 1. Develop Major Goals.

Ask yourself: “What steps do I need to take to….?”
These steps will be your major goals.
Write each major goal on it’s own sheet of paper. Each goal needs to be specific and there should be some way of telling when you have reached the goal. If you set up a goal of “being rich” or “being organized” you may never know when you have arrived. Decide on a few long-term specific goals and write them down. You may also have a few short-term goals. Write those down also.

Major goals can be specific or broad in scope, but they must always lead directly towards the Objective they support. They must also always have a deadline. A date you plan to accomplish the major goal by, a realistic date that not only motivates you into action but also ensures progress towards your Objective.

Usually you will have many major goals at a time, and in the case of a real long- term Objective, some of the major goals will not be clear at the start, with others coming about when certain existing major goals are achieved.

Step 2. Develop Tasks.
Tasks are usually the simple things you must do to accomplish a major goal.

Break each of those goals down into single activities that will get you to that goal. Be painfully specific. Each step should be something you can actually complete before going on to something else. What will you have to do? Where will you have to go? Who will you have to consult? Write those down.

If you’ve set a major goal, for example, to have a complete understanding about investing in bonds by next June 15th, you will have to accomplish a number of Tasks for acquiring that knowledge.
Choosing to go to the library and get a book on bonds would be a Task.
Reading the book for one hour each this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, could be three separate Tasks.

Calling your buddy who’s had success in the bond market would be a Task as well.

All of these Tasks, which should be written down on the same paper as the major goal they support, must be set with a deadline, for if you procrastinate calling your buddy, never get around to completely reading the book, or don’t even bother checking the website, you won’t reach your major goal of learning about bonds, or won’t meet it by its Accomplishment Date.

By focusing your mind on the easy-to-accomplish Tasks, and completing those Tasks, you’ll be making great progress towards your major goals and objectives without feeling overwhelmed.

Sometimes it is easy to see the steps it will take to reach a goal, other times you really have to work it out. Some goals will have obvious steps that you can list and the results are guaranteed. Other goals may be more complicated. You don’t always control everything that goes into some of your goals, so make allowances for that and move ahead Be prepared to change some of the steps as you go along-but don’t put off starting until you can be sure of the outcome. You want to be acting on your goals, not waiting.

Now get out your calendar or planner and list each of those steps at a specific time on a specific day. That’s the key. It doesn’t help to know what you have to do until you actually take the time to do it. It is easy to say “I’ll do it tomorrow” when you don’t have a schedule planned, but if you know you have to do step one today so you can do step two tomorrow-it’s a lot harder to procrastinate. It also helps to know that by taking each of the steps in turn you will eventually reach your goal. The first step might be to spend some serious time-after this original planning session-planning each of the steps in more detail and looking at how they fit into your schedule. This step might include looking up phone numbers, addresses, prices, and other information you need to make your plan work.

Okay, so here’s the tricky part. Take the first step. You are that much closer to your goal. Now try the second step. Mark off each step on that original list as you complete it to keep track of your progress. Work at your own pace and in your own way. If you are the type of person who can stick to one task until it is done, try working on only one or two goals at a time. If you are the more easily sidetracked type, plan from the start to move quickly from one goal to another until all of the goals are done.

There are a number of good approaches to take if you find that you are having difficulty in completing one of your goals, particularly if you begin to fundamentally doubt whether the goal is achieveable or worth the effort.

• First, don’t get discouraged.
  It’s worth noting that many of life’s most difficult accomplishments are also some of the most worthwhile. And the most noteworthy accomplishments are, by definition, not common. That’s because, if something were easy, then everyone would be doing it and it would no longer be very noteworthy. Not only is there nothing wrong with taking on tough challenges, many believe there is something wrong with only taking on easy goals that require no real effort or growth.
• Recognize partial accomplishment.
  Partial accomplishment is still accomplishment. Suppose you’re living a sedentary lifestyle and you set a goal to start running 10 miles every week. If you only manage to run eight miles most weeks, then it’s important to recognize that this is a huge improvement over running none at all and that you have been much more successful than if you had never set the goal in the first place. Acknowledging partial success is very important if you intend to set challenging or lofty goals.
• Break large, difficult goals into smaller, manageable goals.
  Large, difficult, or complex goals can be both overwhelming and discouraging if progress does not come quickly. The solution to both of these is to break the big goal into smaller goals, actually creating a separate Goalplan for each part. By shelving some of the pieces until a later date, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed or discouraged.
• Use your personal support group.
  When appropriate, call on trusted family and friends to help if they can, even if it just means lending encouragement (though be careful to avoid naysayers, who sometimes reside in the same house). Try to find people who’ve got first-hand experience doing what you’re doing trying to do. Many people will give time and advice when they meet somebody else who’s curious or passionate about whatever it is they’re passionate about.
• Internalize the lesson of perseverence.
  It is usually true that something, no matter how difficult, can be done if someone spends enough time trying to do it. If you think of any goal as requiring a finite number of steps (tasks), then each task completed is one step closer toward completion of the goal. Again, the key is often to break the steps down into what may seem to be absurdly simple tasks, but ones that you know you can complete, thereby making measurable progress and establishing forward momentum.
• Is it ever time to give up?
  You are the only one who can decide when enough is enough and that it’s time to move on to something different. Unfortunately, many people give up too soon, and some even establish a tradition of completing 50% of many things but 100% of nothing. Because our mission is to help you “get things done,” and because we strongly believe in the power of perseverence, we naturally encourage you to keep on going.

  However, we understand that goals change, as well as the underlying motivations for individual goals. And more importantly, we advocate and encourage balance (over the long-term, at least), meaning that an obsessive focus on one goal could eventually lead to unhealthy or destructive negligence of other aspects of one’s life, such as the classic case in which career obsession leads to one’s neglect of health or family obligations.

  So in the interest of promoting healthy balance, we suggest that you frequently take stock of all of your goals, with an eye toward the balanced whole. If, at such a time, you decide that your emphasis needs to be shifted elsewhere for the time being, then consider rescheduling some of your goals (or tasks) for a later date. Not only is there nothing wrong with such rescheduling, myGoals.com is specifically designed to allow this flexibility.

1. Every Choice Counts!

Every choice must have a purpose. Every choice counts. There are no insignificant choices, no neutral actions. Even the smallest gesture has a consequence, leading you toward or away from your goals.

2. Reality Counts!

Reality is the foundation of success because reality is truth. Reality is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Get this and you‚ve got it: Reality moves you towards your goals; denial leads you away. There is only one reality!

3. Character Counts!

From the minute you open your eyes in the morning until they close again for sleep each night, everything in between complements or compromises your character. Every day˜for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health˜character counts. It is more important to have character than to be a character.

4. Self-Discipline Counts!

Self-discipline is a habit. It is not situational, but it is applied situation by situation. Anyone can be self-disciplined on occasion, but to get consistently positive results takes consistency. It is the day-in, day-out practice of self-discipline that determines where you’ll end up. Every act of self-discipline moves you toward your goals and every exception takes you off course.

5. Personal Development Counts!

Growth and development is a lifelong pursuit: there’s always some polishing to do, knowledge to gain, and love to be deepened. Self-development ends only when we run out of time. Life is a work in progress, improvement never ends, and you never totally arrive. You are, and will be for as long as you live, a self in evolution.

6. Excellence Counts!

The pursuit of excellence is not only politically correct, it is also highly profitable. A commitment to excellence can help you to capture true wealth and realize the inherent value of your potential. You will never outlive its importance, usefulness, and necessity. Its absence devalues potential, credibility, and reputation.

7. Failure Counts!

Failure serves an indispensable function in the production of your success. It provides information and motivation for you to learn from and apply. Failure is not only the output of an unsuccessful activity; it is also the input for a successful one. The bright side of failure is that it inspires improvement, creativity, change, and most importantly, purposeful activity.

8. Health & Energy Counts!

Widen your moral purpose - vow not just to live longer, but to live better, to have more energy, self-worth, and clarity. The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. You must take care of your body because the day will come a time when it will no longer tolerate your indifference.

9. Fun Counts!

An essential part of your journey is the pursuit of happiness. Yet, the only way to maintain a sense of fun and play is to consciously choose to make it a priority. Unfortunately, fun seems to wind up on the bottom of the “To Do” list. You are the conductor of mirth in your life, your own personal Clown Prince of Mirth and Merriment.

10. Your Legacy Counts!

It’s non-negotiable: You will leave a legacy. The question is not whether you’ll leave a legacy but what legacy you will leave! To arrive at the point that you think seriously about your legacy, you must reach a level of reality and commitment that represents an eternity to follow. When you take the final bow, who will you be? How will you enter eternity? Will you just be a footnote in history?

Rule #1:
Expect Volatility

We are witnessing an exponential increase in the velocity, complexity, and unpredictability of change. This increase creates a hypercompetitive international environment that bears little resemblance to the one that existed even five years ago.

Rule #2:
Invent New Rules

Invent your own and make others follow you! Competitive advantages and profits will belong to innovators who transcend the existing parameters of competition.

Rule #3:
Innovate or Die

Develop conscious strategies and mechanisms to promote consistent innovation. Resting on your laurels is simply not an option: winners are innovating and surpassing themselves constantly.

Rule #4:
Break Barriers

You must dismantle the internal barriers that so often separate people, departments and disciplines. The boundaries between firms and their outside suppliers, customers and sometimes even competitors are also under severe pressure.

Rule #5:
Be Fast

Implementation is everything and it better be fast. These days it’s far better to be 80 percent right and quick than 100 percent and three months late.

Rule #6:
Think Like an Entrepreneur

The days of depending on corporate size and reputation to drop opportunities in your lap are over. Entrepreneurs go out and make things happen and allow themselves to fail and improve because of it.

Rule #7:
Think Global

The fastest growing markets in the world today are outside North America. Companies can and do now shop in a single global supermarket for just about everything.

Rule #8:
Keep Learning

At the end of the day, the only truly sustainable competitive advantage will be your ability to learn faster and better than your competitors, and to turn that learning into new products, services and technologies before your competitors can imitate your last innovation.

Rule #9:
Measure Performance Differently

Concentrate on key strategic and profitability drivers, ones that reveal the underlying dynamics of your business, focus your energy on what really drives the future success of your business.

Rule #10:
Be Nice

The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and hands and then work outward from there. If we improve ourselves by doing good for others, we build a solid bridge for success in the new economy.

1. Set High Expectations

Expectations should be expressed, negotiated, and agreed upon at the beginning of a mentoring relationship. Sometimes mentoring proves disappointing. This disappointment can frequently be traced back to differing or unfulfilled expectations.

2. Know the Purpose

Jointly agree on the purpose of the relationship. When you each know what you want and why you want it, you have the basis for building a wonderful relationship.

3. Stick to The Schedule

All good things come to those who meet consistently. Determine the regularity of interaction and stick to it.

4. Be Accountable

Determine the type of accountability. Mutual responsibility is an important mentoring dynamic! It does not just happen - you must plan for it. Agree together on how you will establish and monitor mentoring tasks.
The heart of empowerment lies not only in what the mentor shares but also in the tasks the mentor gives to the protégé. You must complete the tasks in order to benefit. Accountability is the prod to make sure this happens, because change rarely takes place without it. It can occur many ways: phone calls, probing questions during meetings, or a planned evaluation time.

5. Develop Communication Mechanisms

It the mentor sees or learns of an area of need or concern for you - and it may be negative - how and when do you want your mentor to communicate it to you? Determine this important communication mechanism is advance so that it causes no undue harm or ill feeling later on.

6. Keep it Confidential

Clarify the level of confidentiality. You both need to make it clear when something you share should be treated as confidential and never, ever violate this trust.

7. Determine the Timeframe

Determine the length of your relationship and by all means avoid open-ended mentorship’s. That way both of you can back out without losing face if the mentoring relationship does not meet your expectations. On the other hand, if it goes well you can continue the relationship and set up a new evaluation point.

8. Measure Progress

Evaluate the relationship from time to time. Inspecting progress from time to time allows you to reinforce predetermined expectations and agreed upon standards of performance.

9. Encourage Feedback

Encourage your protégé to ask for feedback. Although difficult to hear at times, feedback is critical to growth and development. Demonstrate that you are open to hear ideas and suggestions to bring out areas that you may not have discussed at the beginning of your relationship. They may want you to keep on a eye on certain blind spots that were initially overlooked.

10. Say Goodbye

A happy ending for a mentoring experience involves closure, in which both parties evaluate, recognize how and where empowerment has occurred, and mutually end the mentoring relationship. What frequently happens in successfully closed mentoring is an ongoing friendship that allows for occasional mentoring and future interweaving of lives as needed.

1. Taking Action Without Planning

When it comes to your goals and future, impulsiveness is the mother of regret. Considerable thought must be given to the ends as well as the means of your strategy.

2. Planning Without Taking Action

Endless preparation is worse than action without planning. Accept that things will never be perfect. Questions will forever exist. Plan well and launch!

3. Unrealistic Timeframes and Expectations

Life is a process not an event. Nothing great was ever built easily. Exercise wisdom and learn to be patient. Unfortunately most things in life take longer and cost more than the best-laid plans anticipate.

4. Reasons “Why” Are Unclear

Why you want to achieve a goal is more important than the goal itself. Before taking action on anything it is imperative that you ask yourself this key question: “Why do I want to achieve this goal?”

5. Denial of Reality

It’s far easier to deny reality than it is to accept it. And far too many people take what seems like the easy way out. Success is information dependent, when we deny reality for whatever reason, we devalue the integrity of our information, thus ensuring failure.

6. Conflicting Values

When we have not clarified our reasons why or defined what success means to us personally, we operate on someone else’s definition. When that occurs values are sure to be in conflict and progress is short- circuited.

7. Diffusion of Energy

Attempting to do too much is a recipe for mediocrity. Rather than doing an excellent job at a few chosen goals we spread our energies over a vast terrain and diffuse what matters most; time and energy.

8. Lack of Focus

Success demands focus. It is the hallmark of all truly great people. Your ability to get and remain focused or lack there of is perhaps the key determinant of your success.

9. Trying To Do It All Alone

Nobody goes through life alone, we all need the cooperation and assistance of others. Put your pride aside and learn to ask for help when you need it. Learn to leverage and share knowledge for your own well being as well as for others who are dependent upon your cooperation.

10. Fear Of Failure

Fear of failure is The “Grand Daddy” of them all. Far too many dreams have suffocated and died because of it. Fear resides where knowledge does not exist; the more you know about anything the less intimidated that you feel. Replace your fears with knowledge and watch your performance leap.

1. Intellectual Curiosity

A passion to understand the changing forces swirling around you, an eagerness to learn them faster, and a recognition that learning is an unending journey.

2. Humility

A pervasive acknowledgement that no one can have all the answers. You must have a willingness to learn from others.

3. Self-Criticism

A logical extension of humility. A constant questioning of conventional wisdom and a keen awareness that success invariably sows the seeds of failure.

4. A High Tolerance for Ambiguity, Complexity and Change

Learning is experimental. Thrive on change; don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by its rough and unpolished exterior. Complexity and ambiguity are simply part of the 21st Century condition.

5. Experimentation

It is only by experimenting with new approaches, monitoring the results and incorporating the feedback into new initiatives that learning takes place.

6. A Hunger for Feedback

A genuine eagerness to reach out and get performance feedback from a variety of sources, and a willingness to listen to it and make changes.

7. Learning by Doing

Have a bias towards action. The use of real-world tests is a much more fertile source of learning than abstract speculation.

8. An Appreciation for Failure and Mistakes

Learning is more a product of failure than success will ever be. View experiments as desirable, mistakes as inevitable and failures as the raw protein necessary for success.

9. Systematic Methods of Data Collection and Distribution

Intellectual capital is rarely created and shared by accident. Conscious mechanisms must be put in place to, acquire, disseminate, and leverage knowledge.

10. Creative Self-Destruction

No advantage lasts forever. Render yourself obsolete before others do it for you. It’s the price world-class innovators gladly pay for staying ahead of the pack.

1. A personal board provides both wisdom and support for the attainment of a specific purpose. Their objective is to help you cross the chasm from the known to the unknown.
2. Consider the roles each person on your board will play. Consider having an entrepreneur along with a clarifier who asks clear questions, a connector who leads you to other people, a challenger who helps you act boldly, and a wise elder or sage. You want to draw upon the wisdom of people with diverse perspectives who think differently than you do.
3. By forming a personal board, you now have the ability to tap into wisdom and experience that you normally would not have access to as well as developing a support network.
4. A diverse board of directors can, will and should pose the big, often-difficult questions that need to be asked.
5. Often in making big decisions, not enough options are considered. A Personal Board of Directors will help you to see the bigger picture. This is called “intellectual bench strength”.
6. A personal board will accelerate your learning curve and it will help you take some of the fear out of making difficult decisions.
7. Your relationship with your personal board is all about “win-win”, so you must be willing to give as much as you receive. Consider ways to add value to their lives and their work.
8. Gaining and maintaining a trusted Personal Board of Directors will keep you from the unnecessary and avoidable “cliffs and canyons.” However, selecting the right people to sit on your personal board of directors can be fraught with peril. Think through and develop “attribute profiles” for the people you need on your personal board.
9. The most effective board will be a group of people who bring a breadth of skills, experience and diversity to your life. Ideally, members of the board should have backgrounds and contacts that differ from–but complement–your background and that of the other directors. As you grow and change, the governing board also will evolve to meet changing needs and circumstances.
10. Take your promising ideas to people you trust and let them help you with perspective, talent, money, etc. Welcome prompt observations and detailed evaluations of your plans. You create a personal board for their vision and experience. Your purpose must be to have them help you remove or manage as many unnecessary barriers that exist. In addition to shortening your learning curve, it provides an additional level of accountability.