Planning for Success
June 13th 2009 20:49
The first part of any plan is defining your goal. In the first part of this series I talked about the definition of success. For each individual this will be unique. But before a plan can be devised you must take the time to determine what success for you is.
I have talked to many people on this subject. Most people have no idea what success means to them and definitely don't have any way of getting there mapped out. If pressured most would say something like "A million dollars in the bank" or a "5000 square foot house" or something else quite meaningless.
To get them to truly answer this question I started asking a question nearly everyone can answer; "If you were retired, and had the means to do what-ever you wanted, what would you be doing?" This nearly always allowed us to define the "goal".
So first ask yourself that question. Another way of putting it might be "What would you rather be doing with your life if money was no object?"
Great, now you have a goal. I'll tell you mine, and share yours here as well. It helps to vocalize it. By putting your goal out into the world it becomes more tangible. I have many parts to my goal; be able to travel the world, create my own art every day, go to major events where-ever and when-ever I want and create new things. All of these are part of my goal, to do what I want, when I want.
This goal should be bold, but able to be broken down into smaller step goals. For me some parts were very easy to accomplish. Creating my own art every day, for example. By defining it, I simply started scheduling time in my day to do this. Every night before going to be I have 2-3 hours to create anything I want.
However not all parts of the goal are so easily obtained. Traveling the world when and where I want is considerably harder to reach. This is where you need to do research. At first I thought this particular goal was out of reach financially, because I looked at it through the eyes of a tourist booking vacations, meaning short term trips AND taking time away from brining in income. This could mean time off work, or if you work for yourself, time away from selling, administering your revenue streams etc. This is incorrect on both fronts.
It is often much cheaper to spend several months in a location than it is to spend one single week. And I don't mean living like a vagabond either. Just think of it this way, how much is it to rent a fully furnished apartment or house in your town? Now how much, per night, is a decent hotel room? Where I live an average rental home is about $1200 per month, and a half way decent hotel is $100 per night. That hotel room would cost $3000 for a month, it is smaller than the house, and doesn't have a full kitchen etc. These costs are not universal but the disparity between a monthly home rental and a hotel room is. For our future trip to New Zealand we are renting a fully furnished house, in the middle of town for less than $650 USD a month.
This of course works for many things. For example food is cheaper at the grocery store than at restaurants. Also booking travel is often cheaper if you stay longer and arrive/leave mid week.
Now back to the issue of having to be away from your sources of revenue, be that a job, or your own business. You don't need to take a vacation to travel the world. My current businesses I can run from anywhere in the world. The freelance work I do is also done where-ever I am. It is harder to arrange when you work for someone else, but rarely is it impossible to do. Many employers are open to the idea of tele-commuting. The trick is making it work for you. And obviously if you are a doctor or in some other role that requires your direct contact with others, it simply won't work. I will go into more detail on this later, but working remotely is a very important part of freeing yourself to do to achieve my definition of success.
Another bit that is very key to this type of success is getting down to a 1 or 2 day work week. This is by far the most difficult task of the plan. But for me it is the final key to success. There are many ways at reaching this goal. A few are passive income sources such as licensing a product you've invented, or selling other peoples products online through affiliate programs. There are literally millions of ways to get passive income. I must warn you that there are also millions of scams saying they give you this.
If it was easy everyone would do it. The fact that very few people reach this type of success tells you it is not for the faint of heart. But I do believe ANYONE is capable of getting there. Define your goal, break it into smaller step goals, create a plan for the easiest goals first and work through to the difficult ones. Execute the plan. Modify each part as necessary. Without the goal there is no plan, without a plan there is no success.
I have talked to many people on this subject. Most people have no idea what success means to them and definitely don't have any way of getting there mapped out. If pressured most would say something like "A million dollars in the bank" or a "5000 square foot house" or something else quite meaningless.
To get them to truly answer this question I started asking a question nearly everyone can answer; "If you were retired, and had the means to do what-ever you wanted, what would you be doing?" This nearly always allowed us to define the "goal".
So first ask yourself that question. Another way of putting it might be "What would you rather be doing with your life if money was no object?"
Great, now you have a goal. I'll tell you mine, and share yours here as well. It helps to vocalize it. By putting your goal out into the world it becomes more tangible. I have many parts to my goal; be able to travel the world, create my own art every day, go to major events where-ever and when-ever I want and create new things. All of these are part of my goal, to do what I want, when I want.
This goal should be bold, but able to be broken down into smaller step goals. For me some parts were very easy to accomplish. Creating my own art every day, for example. By defining it, I simply started scheduling time in my day to do this. Every night before going to be I have 2-3 hours to create anything I want.
However not all parts of the goal are so easily obtained. Traveling the world when and where I want is considerably harder to reach. This is where you need to do research. At first I thought this particular goal was out of reach financially, because I looked at it through the eyes of a tourist booking vacations, meaning short term trips AND taking time away from brining in income. This could mean time off work, or if you work for yourself, time away from selling, administering your revenue streams etc. This is incorrect on both fronts.
It is often much cheaper to spend several months in a location than it is to spend one single week. And I don't mean living like a vagabond either. Just think of it this way, how much is it to rent a fully furnished apartment or house in your town? Now how much, per night, is a decent hotel room? Where I live an average rental home is about $1200 per month, and a half way decent hotel is $100 per night. That hotel room would cost $3000 for a month, it is smaller than the house, and doesn't have a full kitchen etc. These costs are not universal but the disparity between a monthly home rental and a hotel room is. For our future trip to New Zealand we are renting a fully furnished house, in the middle of town for less than $650 USD a month.
This of course works for many things. For example food is cheaper at the grocery store than at restaurants. Also booking travel is often cheaper if you stay longer and arrive/leave mid week.
Now back to the issue of having to be away from your sources of revenue, be that a job, or your own business. You don't need to take a vacation to travel the world. My current businesses I can run from anywhere in the world. The freelance work I do is also done where-ever I am. It is harder to arrange when you work for someone else, but rarely is it impossible to do. Many employers are open to the idea of tele-commuting. The trick is making it work for you. And obviously if you are a doctor or in some other role that requires your direct contact with others, it simply won't work. I will go into more detail on this later, but working remotely is a very important part of freeing yourself to do to achieve my definition of success.
Another bit that is very key to this type of success is getting down to a 1 or 2 day work week. This is by far the most difficult task of the plan. But for me it is the final key to success. There are many ways at reaching this goal. A few are passive income sources such as licensing a product you've invented, or selling other peoples products online through affiliate programs. There are literally millions of ways to get passive income. I must warn you that there are also millions of scams saying they give you this.
If it was easy everyone would do it. The fact that very few people reach this type of success tells you it is not for the faint of heart. But I do believe ANYONE is capable of getting there. Define your goal, break it into smaller step goals, create a plan for the easiest goals first and work through to the difficult ones. Execute the plan. Modify each part as necessary. Without the goal there is no plan, without a plan there is no success.
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Comment by Dianna G
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
An interesting post. My own personal goal is to be able to survive off of my writing-I write dark fantasy and poetry, which makes this a lot more difficult-I'm working towards it, but I know it's a long, hard process. And I haven't been able to work on it nearly as much since my computer got broken, but I'll figure something out.
~Dianna
Comment by Mindzle
Amateur Artist
Samurai Sketch
A Successful Life
You should take a look at my art blog and website c-hammer.com because I tend to illustrate dark fantasy, horror and fantasy subjects.
There are many ways to reach your goal. Do you have a plan for attaining it?
Comment by Dianna G
I Wish This Was 42
Fictional Worlds
Right now my plan is kind of on hold as I figure out how I'm getting a new laptop.
Someone sat on mine.
The hard part is making him pay me back the $500 he now owes me so I can get a new one. Once I have a computer again I'll be able to write more consistently.
~Dianna