By: Roshawn Watson
Goal setting is extremely powerful and can have a dramatic
impact on your personal finances, productivity, career, relationships, health
and life. Motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar, often admonished salespeople to set
goals to achieve their peak performances. In fact, he reportedly went as far as
saying “a goal properly set is halfway reached.” However, sometimes setting
large lofty goals may seem like a waste of time, or worst. After all, shouldn’t
goals have a strong basis in reality? Let’s delve into this issue. Here are 4
reasons you should set unrealistically high financial goals.
Setting Unrealistically High Goals Raises Your Performance to the Level of Expectation.
When you are around the best, read about the best, think about
the best, eventually you begin to expect the best in your own life. Even if it
is entirely subconscious, there’s something that will click internally and begin
to move you towards excellence. This is why your associations matter. Your
environment influences your expectations about yourself. How many would-be entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians, and
peacemakers have failed to realize an authentic utilization of their gifts,
personalities and passions because they never became aware that THEY could do
great things. Greatness was never modeled by their associations.
Eagles who hang out with chickens too long may forget how to fly!
By setting phenomenal goals, you are intentionally focusing on the best, and
your behavior will follow suit.
Setting Unrealistically High Goals Encourages You To Draw On Your Creativity
Success for you is dependant on your capacity to believe.
If you are placed in a situation that forces you to draw on
dormant potential, your performance will change accordingly. In addition to
normal goals, I personally advocate setting stretch goals: goals that will
deliberately pull one out of his comfort zone. With respect to finances, I have
seen people adopt this in various ways, such as a recent pledge by many online
bloggers to make $30,000 online in 2012. Perhaps you’re trying to get your
business in the black or are up for a big promotion. Don’t just settle for a
common “been there, done that” mediocre goal. Choose something that inspires awe
in your observers, and then develop a creative plan to MAKE it happen. Remember,
the Rich Dad, Poor Dad lesson for those who
desire to be rich: the quintessential question isn’t “can I afford it?” but rather “how can I afford it?”
One contemporary business example of this point is beautifully
illustrated in Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk.
He writes about how he was challenged with redefining the wine industry, an
industry that is known for being stodgy and conservative, as he took the helm of
his dad’s company. He was a rule breaker, was passionate, and he
enthusiastically embraced technological advances that allowed him to spread his
message, virally. Consequently, he found his unique voice, established a loyal
following, and tremendously built that brand to heights few expected and in
record time. His goals helped him prove the skeptics wrong.
Setting Unrealistically High Goals Motivates Yourself
I read that the median response for a recent Gallup poll was
that a person would need to make at least $150,000 per
year to be considered rich, which caused me to reflect on when
I was most recently challenged on my definition of rich by Felix Dennis, founder
of Maxim. He claims that a household with a net worth of less than $2 million is
uncomfortably poor. He was one of the
few people that I know of who would classify someone with a net worth of $1.7
million as not just “poor,” but “uncomfortably poor.” Something about that is
revolutionary and motivating.
While we can argue over arbitrary classifications, such as who
is rich or who
is middle class, a more productive use of time is to determine
what goals inspire you. What is worth spending the next 3-5 years realizing?
What goals are worth emptying yourself into, fully? When I wrote about the
senior and founding partner at a law firm who only made $30 his first month in
his practice but now earns $30 million per month, I am speaking about someone
who emptied himself into his practice. It is very likely that had he given up on
his goal to be in business for himself and fight corporate conglomerates, he
would not have realized considerable success. When I listen to him describe the
high-stakes litigation that he was involved in and the many obstacles he had to
overcome, I can tell that he not only had a strong sense of self but also knew
precisely what his objectives were. Otherwise, it would have been too easy to
waiver, fold under the pressure, or settle before he it pay dirt. Quite
honestly, he still has even loftier goals (beyond his Gulf Streams). That’s what
keeps him striving for excellence. It keeps him relevant.
When you set goals that are beyond what you think are
realistic, you are bringing
those enormous dreams into the reality of your mind.
You are speaking to those dreams and declaring that they have deadlines to be
realized in your life. This is significant because whether you
think you can or think you cannot, you’re right!
Give more consideration to what pursuing grand goals effects
in you. Jim Roth said it this way
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get.
Setting Unrealistically High Goals Motivates Others
Of all the things I've done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal. - Walt Disney
Lame goals don’t inspire!
Has anyone tried to motivate you to achieve an uninspiring
goal? Me too. Did it work? I didn’t think so. Daniel Burnham said “make no small
plans; they have no magic to stir men’s souls.”
There’s something very powerful when someone sets a goal so
awesome that it causes you to reevaluate what’s possible in your own life. In
Your Do
Over Guide, I shared the story of a venture capitalist who by
his mid-twenties had already retired twice, was one of the youngest CEO’s of a
publicly traded company, and was making phenomenal investments that returned
more in a day than most people got in a year. When I heard his next goals, I got
motivated for myself. I began to remove limits that I didn’t even know existed
in my own life. Moreover, I began to enlist the help of like-minded individuals,
and they were kind enough to oblige me. Now, their help was fully voluntary, so
what was the draw for them? It was the goal: the goal was big enough engage
others meaningfully.
Let’s be very serious: if your goal is so small that you can
achieve it on your own, then it’s likely not big enough. However, if you dare to
dream bigger, you stand to accomplish a fraction
of your potential.
Closing Thoughts
People often caution dreamers. They tell us to “get back into
reality. It’s not that simple. We haven’t accounted for all of the variables.
What if we FAIL?” Here’s my response to every
Eeyore:1) ”I love and believe in the beauty of my dream,” 2) in fact, the only
way that I will achieve my dream is to stop being realistic, 3) everyone starts
somewhere, 4) over-analysis can create paralysis, 5) failure is a matter of
opinion, 6) failure is temporal, 7) failure is instructive, and 8) failure
unleashes creativity. I’m not afraid of trying and failing. I’m afraid of not
trying. Sometimes the greatest risk is not taking one.
He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed. - William James.
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