Goal Girl’s Blog

I wrote this post last March and never published it.  It’s still relavent, so here you go.     I’ve fallen down on the job as far as maintaining this blog and a couple of other goals, but I’ll forgive myself and move on now.

Photo Credit: Rob Wallace

Have you set too many goals? When you first get excited about the process of goal setting, and really get the bit in your teeth, it’s easy to vomit goals all over the place. The problem with this is that goals have to live in the real world, and unfortunately, the real world doesn’t usually stop so that you can pursue every single goal that pops into your head.

That’s ok. Try a bunch of goals on for size, the ones that you are really passionate about will stick with you and the rest will fall by the side of the road. Let them go for now; you may revisit them later when things get a little less busy.

Pick the one or two goals that really light your fire. This is what I am having to do. While losing a lot of weight would be a wonderful thing to do. I’m finding that with my current work schedule, it’s just not possible to do everything I need to do to make that a workable goal for the time being. I can still eat healthy food, try to get a little more exercise by say, letting my 4 year old piggy back while I hang laundry or park far away from the door, but as far as spending a couple of hours a day in the gym… with a 50-70 hour work week, that’s just not feasible.

What I find I can do with the little time I have is stuff relating to my other goal of replacing income. When I succeed at that, I’ll have a better shot at the weight loss goal, because ultimately that success will buy me a lot of time. Residual income does that for you.

So for right now, I’m focusing on that part of my goal-suite. I’ve found a product that I can believe in. The guy who owns that product treats his affiliates like gold, really helps them along… and this may be why his product has such great gravity in ClickBank (meaning that a lot of affiliates are making sales with that product). I was actually surprised when I found out who the true creator of the product was, since he used a pseudonym. I signed up for the emails that he sends his affiliates and it turned out to be a marketing guru whom I greatly respect, and from whom I’d already learned tons of good stuff.

My problem has been a)finding time to properly implement One Week Marketing/Bum Marketing and b)inertia.. when I’ve had a particularly difficult week at work (several of those lately), it’s super hard to get myself to get out of bed and work on my marketing projects after my daughter has gone to bed. With the resources that this fellow provides though, I can kick out two or three articles a day by stopping in a coffee shop by my daughter’s daycare 20 minutes before I pick her up. Now that’s not a ton; I know people who habitually write ten articles a day, but given enough snowflakes, you eventually have a snowball. I’m able to do something every single day to help grow my business.

And something I need to make a note of and put in my back pocket for later is this: By building a relationship with me over time (several months), I’m eager to promote this guy’s product. I believe in his success, so success seems that much more tangible when I play ball on his team. Of all the gurus I’ve read, contacted, subscribed to, this one guy is the only one who has really gotten down to a friendly, personal level.

Hopefully soon that success will buy me more time to spend with you guys and gals!

The Third Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

Goals can be worded as either ‘avoidance goals’ or ‘approach goals’. I can set my goal as “get my projects completed on time to avoid being fired.” or “get my projects completed so that I have time to work on my proposal which might get me a huge bonus or promotion.” Consistently formulating your goals as avoidance rather than approach goals has a negative impact on your motivation to reach said goals.

Timothy Pychyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa Canada says that tipping the scale in favor of avoidance goals relates to less satisfaction with progress on personal goals and feeling less competent in pursuing your goals.

Ergo, by couching your goals in positive terms, you give your motivation and self-esteem a little boost. Looking great on the beach is a better motivator for most people seeking to lose weight than “avoiding a heart attack,” even if the latter is less superficial and vain than the first.

The Second Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

The virtuoso tenor stands behind the curtain, tux strait, handkerchief ready, the confidence born of years of preparation for this moment.

The curtain rises. The tenor steps forward, and blinks in shock at the disco ball,dancing poodles and kindergarten chorus singing “The Wheels on The Bus” to the accompanyment of rhythm sticks and triangles.

Do you think that our accomplished opera virtuoso can do his best work under these circumstances?

To maximize the probability of success, control your environment as far as possible. If your goal involves weight loss, hanging out in coffee shops where there are trays of almond croissant and choco-chocolate-chip muffins is probably not going to make your task any easier. I wonder if there are any gym cantinas that have free wireless? No? Can you afford a card with a service plan? If not, maybe you should limit your “hanging out time” and go for a walk. If you have to feel productive while you exercise, download some podcasts on your topic of interest. Or better yet, get a headset with a mic and record your own podcast/peptalk.

If your goal is to grow your content for your blog/article writing campaign/squidoo lenses/hub pages, etcetera, you have to create an environment conducive to writing. You should set an expectation with those who share your home, that at a certain time every day, you are not to be disturbed. Unless you are doing research (and really, research time should be a seperate time allocation), disconnect from the internet to avoid distractions. Gather your tools in one spot so you don’t have to search all over the house for them when it’s time to write. Get a word processing application with a visible word count… this will let give you a visible cue that you are making progress. Set a target word count. If you get to that point and the creative juices are flowing, keep going, but put something on the screen. Don’t edit when you write; do that later! Treat writing like sculpting… chip away what is not part of your article, but you have build the stone first in the case of writing.

Your goal is to learn Spanish? Then go hang out with some folks who speak the language and who are willing to help you! Don’t study the language in a library where you can’t really repeat the words and phrases, because language is as much a physical skill as a mental skill, and requires physical practice. You’re more likely to be successful at it if you actually put your mouth around the words, and actually hear native speakers using the words in context.

So don’t try to swim on a basketball court and don’t fish for shark in a drainage ditch. Really sit and list what environmental elements are likely to contribute or detract from your progressing toward your goal. Maximize the first, minimize the second.

The First Installment of Five: Time-honored Tips to Boost Your Goal Chasing Success.

Stop swimming against the tide! Yes, there are significant advantages to swimming against the tide. Being the one fish swimming left when the rest of the school is swimming right can get you noticed. Being the best at doing something a little different and/or more difficult than the rest of the herd can result in great rewards. For an excellent treatment of this, read Seth Godin’s “The Dip”.

In some situations though, finding a school of fish going the direction you want to go can also reap benefits. This is especially true at the beginning of your quest when you are in more of a student mode than a teaching mode. Associating yourself somehow with some big fish who’re going where you are going (or have already been there) and know the way can greatly flatten the learning curve. Sometimes the collective energy of a group of like-minded-people can contribute to your own passion (just be careful that you are only borrowing their passion and knowledge, don’t let the herd make decisions for you).

How do you find a “big fish”? First of all, go where they go. Twitter is a great place for this. Do a Twitter search to find out who is talking about your topic of interest. Then search on that person to see who is talking about them. If someone is being retweeted or discussed on a frequent basis, then a lot of folks are finding value in what they are saying. Unfortunately, not everyone you admire in the real world has mastered Twitter. I’ve had to unfollow a couple of ‘real world’ gurus whose books and lectures I loved, because they used bots to spam Twitter and provided nothing of value to me. Not naming names. If you happen to follow them, you’ll see for yourself!

You can also search blogs for people who have authority in your area of interest. Google’s Blog search or the Do-Follow Blog Directory are good places to start. If a blog really addresses topics pertinent to your goal, join the discussion. Make comments that add value. Ask questions.

Often finding someone knowledgeable in your area will also lead you to a group of like-minded people. I liked what Jodie Petals had to say about making Squidoo lenses, so I read more of her lenses and started following her on Twitter. That lead me to Jennifer Ledbetter, aka “PotPieGirl’s” One Week Marketing, a content marketing strategy. Eventually this lead me to join Wealthy Affiliate, which is a great place to pick the brains of good folks like Travis Sagos, Jennifer and Jodie.