You know, I talked briefly about my goals in My First Post here, but the concept of setting goals has been pretty heavy on my mind for the last few days.
As most of you know, I have an excellent mentor – Dean Holland. In his first session with his students, he asked these questions: “If you don’t have goals to work towards, how do you know what you’re actually working for in the first place? How do you know what you’re aiming to achieve if you don’t have goals in front of you?”
When I first started this blog, I told you I had two main goals: finish setting up the blog, and bring in at least $1.
Well, I have completed those two goals!
This website is set up, functional, and getting traffic. I’m pretty happy with my theme (although I may change that header later on), I’ve got some content that’s actually worth reading, I have people showing up to read the content, and I think I’m pretty much done with plugins (for now).
Plus, I have actually made money online! It’s not much money, admittedly, but since my goal was so low – $1 – even a few dollars meets my goal!
So what do I do from here?
From here, I am going through a new goal setting process. It’s new to me, at least!
I started reading online, just searching for ‘goal setting’, ‘long term goals’, ‘how to set goals’, and things like that. What I found (other than a whole lot of Tony Robbins and Zig Ziglar) was interesting. The best information on setting goals was also the simplest. Little things like stating what you WILL do instead of what you WON’T do – saying “I will post a new blog post today” instead of “I won’t put off posting on my blog today” – or the simple act of WRITING IT DOWN to reinforce the goal in your head.
Today I’m setting up my new goals. Here is the path I’m following: Decide what I want (big picture), break the big goals down into smaller goals, break those down into tasks, take all of that and create a mindmap (quite possibly the best use for a flowchart EVER!), then print that mindmap off and hang it up by my desk!
I’ll go more into mindmaps in a later post, but for now I’ll just ask this question…
What are your goals? Where do you want to end up? WHY do you have the goals you do? What’s your motivation?
You made money online? How cool!! Love your theme, don’t know about the goals right now, but we’re getting there!
Take care! See you on the inside!
Lisa~
Hi Brian
Great post!!!
My goals is to have a successful online business,generating $4,619 or more per month ,I plan on acheiving this by producing three information products with affiliate marketing..I commit to achieve this target by December 26 2009…am hoping
If I acheive this..it will allow me to work from home, give to others less fortunate, travel abroad and work towards setting up a web consulting business.
My main motivation to do all of this is FREEDOM.. to have control of my life and to do the things I like to do..as well as helping others…
Avis
LOVE the blog headline!!
You’re funny!!
lisa~
Hippie:
Great blog and congrats on reaching your goals…Please do share the secret of making that one dollar–as Chinese saying goes “Longest journey begin with first step” Take care,
Brian … Sick Hippie guy … a.k.a My bro !!
Excellent post man, real good !
You have highlighted such an important point .. Take note all !!
Keep it up man .. Awesome !
Dean
Hi Brian,
I am so glad everything seems to be coming together for you.
I wasted YEARS online by not having any real planning or goals to follow so now I really understand their importance.
Keep up the good work.
David
@Avis – Those are really good, solid goals there! Pretty similar to my own, really. FREEDOM is the greatest goal of all, and I believe it is the main reason we are all here!
@Lisa – Thanks! It’s just one of those things – when someone gives you a title, you gotta roll with it!
@Ralph – Thanks for stopping by – the first dollar (and a few subsequent dollars) were just from an affiliate link on a different site. To be honest with you, I had forgotten about it until I got the email!
@Dean – Thanks for the kind words mate! Goals are a vital part of the success here – if I don’t know where I’m going I have no chance of getting there, right?
@David – I’ve wasted a few years myself without planning and goals. I’ve been at this for a long time, and have bought a lot of products (most of which I’ve never gotten all the way through). I haven’t taken this much action in a long time – and I think it’s the goal setting that pushed me to it.
Brian, all I can say is WOW. I wanted to read all of your posts before commenting but this one I found so inspiring. My goal…..FOCUS! I have so many things I want to do to be FREE from my day job and FREE to be home with my son, but very limited time after hours. I find myself hopping from one task to another, doing a little here and a little there, not quite FINISHING anything because there’s so much to get done, and so many other important responsibilites that need my attention. I love SWM but I feel so behind the 8 ball trying to get things going. Perfectionism may be a problem, I’ve been fighting with custom permalinks all week LOL. Anyway Brian…I just wanted to say your FOCUS and your plan is awesome, and I’ll keep my eye on you, you’re a GREAT example! Thank you!
Tammie
Hi Brian,
Glad to know you’ve already made some money even before Dean showing us how to.
One of my goals is to be profitable while enjoying what I do online and hence why I chose the domain name for my site instead of using my name.
Just like today’s call with Dean, we need to enjoy what we’re doing otherwise it will be called work or just a job and we won’t be too happy at the end of the day.
I heard of mindmapping before but not sure how that works. Look forward to your new posts soon about that.
Talk soon,
Huddson
Hey Brian,
Good to see you’re still the sickest hippiest dude around and I’m looking forward to working with you and seeing you achieve those goals.
You’ve inspired me to create a “goals” page on my blog now, then I can tick em off as I go along
One of your goals should be to fix your microphone so we can talk on Skype :-S
Oh, nearly forgot, I’ve got some free Twitter stuff up at my blog if you want to come grab it
Peace
Phil
http://www.philainsworth.com
Hey Brian,
The blog looks great and your posts are fantastic, well done on reaching your first goal – great news
Best wishes
Trude
Hey Brian
Great Blog and great post. Congrates on achieving your first two goals. You have definitely got me thinking about my long term goals and the tasks I need to do to achieve them.
Keep the brilliant work up
Kerie
Hi Brian,
This is my first visit to your blog but I hope to come back on a regular basis. Goal Setting is admittedly not my strongest trait but I have been aware of its power for several years. Sometimes it just takes someone like Dean to point out how important goal setting can be to our lives and our chances of success.
Zig Ziglar is a good one to listen to but over the years my favourite has been Jim Rohn. He is a smart man and we can all learn from him.
“For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.” Jim Rohn
Andy
SickHippie, you ARE sick. OK. For those of you not familiar with our slang here in the states, “sick” is a good thing at this point in time. SickHippie (Brian) knew what he was doing when he decided to use that name.
Anywho, great post, great theme, great job making money online. Kudos to you my friend. Those few dollars are just the start. I know that you are willing to help whoever needs it, and that will come back to you. Keep up the great work.
All the best,
Ed
PS – Thanks for helping me out in the past, I highly appreciate it.
Hey Brian
Congrats on your first dollar. You and I had similar goals starting this coaching. I am still waiting for my first dollar and I have a feeling that my blog will never be finished. I will use the analogy of our life. Both are complete for the day; however, tomorrow will bring changes and we the opportunity to take advantage of the opportunity to enhance our life and blog or leave it as is. They both or fluid and can be changed for the better. When I make that first “dollar” through my blog, it will also change my life. Well, at least it is a start.
Stop by my blog and say Hi.
Good work
Roger Neumann
Go out and make it a successful day!
Great post ….i spend hours being the “busy fool” setting goals daily,weekly has helped me alot…
Keep up the good work
richard
Brian,
Congrats on reaching your initial goals. Not only does that bring a great sense of accomplishment, but it shows that you’re on the right track.
As well, thanks for all of your help and support. Keep up the great work!
Teddy
Brian,
Great post, dude! WOW, goals are something we all need to work on, me especially!
I’m still at goal number one for making my first dollar on the internet. Spending
lots of time at my laptop and trying to soak up just as much knowledge as one brain can absorb. I will definitely have to do some research into goal setting myself.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Blog On!!!
Mike
Hi there, it’s good to know that you humble share your goals.. All marketers start to dream for a single $ of earnings online. And yes long term goals are quite needed so that we could desire to earn more in the future
I would love to hear more updates about how your business is going
Hi Brian,
Hey Congrats on the first dollar and on creating a create site, so now I quess you’ll have to establish a some next step goals. Keep up the great work
Believe and Achieve