By Georgia Kirke with special guest Doug Bennett
When it comes to goal setting, what’s your methodology? You’ll likely be building your personal brand in line with your business plan, but have you stopped to think about the intricacies of the process?
Author and Work Optional Lifestyle Financial Planner® Doug Bennett is known as The Goals Guy™ because he used the low points in life to reach his high points; he moved from the brink of bankruptcy to millionaire status by setting and sticking to great goals.
In this blog he’s going to share five of his top goal-setting tactics so that you can set your mind to success and fulfil your dreams.
Why you don’t need anything fancy to get started!
Doug: “In 2004 I bought a little spiral-bound notebook for 59p and for a while I wrote a list of my goals every day. At some point it got tucked away in a drawer and I forgot about it. Five or six years later I came across it in the drawer and when I looked at it I was amazed to see that I had completed 10 out of 11 of my goals!
I had heard that if you had your goals written down you’d be more likely to achieve them but I hadn’t quite believed it until that point! So, having had that experience, I thought I should give it another go with some bigger goals!”
Doug makes goal setting sound so simple and it’s clear that although he temporarily misplaced his notebook he continued to take the necessary action steps to bring his goals to reality.
You can read about his experiences in depth in his first book Goals Do Come True: From The Edge Of Financial Oblivion To A Life Of Freedom & Fun, and if you’re a service-based entrepreneur he’s created a modified version for you Think Simple Win Big: How to Build the Business of Your Dreams With a Few Simple Goals.
How Doug turned his life around
In 2007 and 2008 Doug was having a particularly challenging time due to the global financial crisis; up until then he’d been processing 15 to 20 mortgages each month along with life cover so he was financially buoyant. Throughout the whole of 2008 he secured only 25 mortgages, which did not support the lifestyle he’d created for himself.
Doug decided to lend his faith to goal setting to help avoid bankruptcy, and it worked; it helped him make his first million!
5 top tips to help you set powerful goals that work
- Get clear on what you want.
Doug: “In Think And Grow Rich Author Napoleon Hill talks about how you become what you think about, and that you will succeed if you set your mind single mindedly to success. In short, you have to make your goals clear and concise; decide and specify what you want, otherwise who knows where you might end up!”
- Create SMART goals.
Doug: “I always use the SMART acronym when I set goals. That helps me ensure that they are specific, measuriable, achievable, realistic, and trackable or timely. If you just say you want to earn more money that might turn out to be £1 more which is probably not what you meant.
Likewise if you want to build your personal brand and say you want to grow your community but then only two more people subscribe to your newsletter you might be a bit peeved! Be specific about what you want.”
- Write your goals in the present tense as if you’ve already accomplished them.
Doug: “The physical act of writing wires it into your brain; if you think about all the things that go through your mind on a day-by-day basis you’ll likely go insane. When you physically write down your goals, part of your brain (the reticular activating cortex) becomes attuned to your focus and continuously presents information relevant to your goal which helps you make progress.
By writing your goal in the present tense it seeps into your subconscious mind which can’t tell the difference between the past, the present and the future; it simply acts upon instructions.
For example, if I write down ‘I own a 1700cc Harley Davidson’ my mind is set for that to become my reality.
Although some people might say it’s less measurable I like to write down as a goal that ‘I am happily married to my wife Bonnie’, because whenever I’m going through a tough time I remind myself that we have each other and it makes me make a bit more of an effort!”
- Rewrite your goals daily.
Doug: “I like to prioritise my goals in the same way that cream rises to the top; if you write your goals down each day the important ones tend to tumble out first and become even more ingrained in your mind.
Rather than refer to the day before just write from memory and you might find that some come and some go. The really important ones will feature day in and day out and they’re the ones that you will be well on your way to achieving over the long term.”
- Surround yourself with positivity.
Have you ever decided to step out of your comfort zone only to have friends or loved ones suggest that it wasn’t a wise idea? Sometimes it can even cause a shift in friendships, which is something I experienced when I set up Write Business Results.
Doug: “Feed your brain and surround yourself with positivity. You might need to distance yourself a little from negative people or at least remember that it’s your opinion that counts!
And, be mindful of using positive language. For example, if you say to a child ‘don’t forget your trainers’, they’ll be thinking about ‘forgetting their trainers’ because the brain doesn’t process a negative. What you want to say is ‘remember your trainers’, For optimal results apply this thinking to your goal setting too!”
How does this apply to you?
I hope you’ve enjoyed Doug’s insights into goal setting. When it comes to your personal brand, how might you apply his wisdom? Do you have a specific financial goal? Do you have measurable objectives in terms of growing your community or range of products or services?
Revisit your personal brand dreams through the lens of Doug’s wisdom and if you like, come and share it in our Facebook community.
And, if you know you have big personal branding goals but need the expertise, encouragement, experience and accountability to make them happen why not book a discovery call with us? We’ll help you create books, blogs and podcasts so that you stand out from the crowd and attract your ideal clients.
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