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How to Move from a Dream to Real Success

By Dave Ramsey, Success Magazine

For your vision and goals to have long-term positive impact, they must include several areas of your life. You must have career goals, financial goals, spiritual goals, physical goals, intellectual goals, family goals and social goals. If you leave one of these areas out, you have what’s known as a fl at tire. Your life will be out of balance and the ride won’t be as smooth.

In order for your goals to work, they must:

Be Specific. If you are going to win, your goals have to be specific. Do not have general concepts. Break everything down and get defined. It’s not specific enough if you can’t tell it occurred.

Be Measurable. It’s easy to set measurable and quantifiable goals in areas like sales. Things that are more cultural in your life, where you’re shifting philosophy in your career or family, are a little harder to measure, but there are ways. Create a baseline and develop a process to measure where you are now and where you are going from there.

Be Yours.

We are forever, in our culture, letting someone else set our goals. You cannot let someone else set your goals for you. The goals have to be your goals— not your boss’s, not your spouse’s and not the person who came before you. They’re yours and you have to have ownership in them or you won’t execute them. There is no energy in other people’s goals. There is only energy in what is inside of you.

Have a Time Limit. How much time do you have to make it happen? If you don’t set a time limit, you will not push yourself. When you have a time limit you stay focused and on track.

Be in Writing. When you write these things down, they’re dangerous. A written goal is much more powerful than a goal you simply set in your head and don’t write down to hold yourself accountable. So, be careful what you write down because there is a good chance it will happen.

Don’t get discouraged if your goals aren’t accomplished in the exact way and down to the second according to your original plan. Be sure to talk with those around you who have achieved great goals they set for themselves. Find out what they did to overcome their intimidating obstacles and what they learned throughout the process. Some flexibility is definitely needed, but as long as you are focused on the end goal and are taking proactive steps toward accomplishing it, you are an achiever and on your way to great things.

 Post Date: February 2nd, 2010